








































































































































































































































































Book ,15 F>?S 

Copyri ght K ?__ 

- 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 












































; 






Other works by the same author 


“The Fugitive” 

“The Little Conscript” 
“One of Us” 

“The Tether” 

“The Jugglers” 


/ 

THE 

SUBLIME JESTER/ 


“Calm is my soul, and clear, 
like the mountains in the morn¬ 
ing. But they think me cold, 
and a mocker with terrible 
jests” 

—Also Sprach Zarathustra 


y 

By 

EZRA BRUDNO ' 

n 



New York 

NICHOLAS L. BROWN 

1924 




Copyright, 1924 
By 

NICHOLAS L. BROWN 
All Rights Reserved 





Printed in y. S. A 

M Wk‘ 


V 


523.07 5 KJ 

U R “/ 


PART ONE: A Poet in the Making 


Chapter One: 

The Heritage 

44 Two: 

Hedwiga 

44 Three: 

The Judengasse 

44 Four: 

A Nightingale in a Crow ’s Nest 

44 Five: 

Hilda 

44 Six: 

Eugenie 


PART TWO: A Fighter in the Making 


Chapter One: 

44 Two: 

4 4 Three: 
44 Four: 


The Salon 
Miriam 

The March to Calvary 
Vagabondage 


PART THREE : A Cynic in the Making 


Chapter One: 
44 Two: 

4 4 Three 


A Happy Exile 

Marguerite 

The Jest of the Gods 

















' ■> 




* 
































"V 
























* 







AUTHOR’S NOTE. 

In creating Albert Zorn, the central figure in tkis 
romance, I have followed the life and career of Heinrich 
Heine. I have chosen him not only because he singularly 
typifies the poet with the “Weltschmerz” in his heart, nor 
because his was an arresting personality, but because he 
is preeminently the symbol of the spirit of his age and his 
people—the symbol of the spirit of all ages and all peoples . 
For, whenever and wherever a Samson arises, the smug, 
hypocritical, pharasaical Philistines are ever ready to fet¬ 
ter him and put out his eyes—and often there is a Delilah 
to betray him. 


E. B. 







PART ONE 

A POET IN THE MAKING 










/ 





THE HERITAGE. 


I. 

T RIVIAL as the incident was, Albert Zorn often 
recalled it in later years and mused upon it 
even at an age when man no longer cherishes 
memories of early boyhood. How could he forget it? 
At the time it was momentous, overshadowing all 
else. 

On his way to school that memorable morning he 
rambled dreamily through the narrow streets of Guns- 
dorf, a thousand fantasies in his boyish brain. 
It seemed as if Alladin’s lamp had been rubbed. He 
was to live in a castle, instead of in the modest quar¬ 
ters back of his father’s humble shop on Schmallgasse 
and wear a velvet coat and lacquered top-boots with 
silver spurs! What else would his father do with 
all that money? From what he had gleaned of his 
parents’ conversation they had received word from 
Amsterdam that a kinsman had died there and left them 
a fortune running into millions. 

He was soon approaching the river near which 
was located the Franciscan cloister that housed his 
school. The swiftly flowing stream came tumbling 
down over rock and boulder and unseen rivulets 
gurgled mysteriously beneath glacial crusts in shadowy 


ii 


12 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


places. For it was at-the beginning of April when 
there were still clinging remnants of the long hoary 
winter. Albert sauntered slowly, wistfully, his day¬ 
dreams, stimulated by the sudden expectancy, com¬ 
mingling with the awakened sentiments of spring.v 

“Good morning, A1—ber’,” that imp, Shorty Fritz, 
welcomed him as he entered the classroom. 

Albert's air-castles were rudely shaken and his face 
grew livid. Fritz had drawled his name in the 
screechy voice of Hans the ragman, who wandered 
from door to door every morning, preceded by his 
donkey, which he coaxed to greater celerity by the 
mystic cry that sounded like “A1—ber’—A1—ber' ”, 
the real meaning of which was only known to Hans 
and the drudging beast. 

Ignoring the tantalizing donkey-call, he walked up to 
his seat, dropped his books and remained standing 
moodily, his small bluish eyes narrowed, his long fair 
hair falling unevenly over his neck and forehead. 

“O, Fritz, what's the difference between Balaam’s 
ass and a zebra?” Long Kunz, another classmate, 
called across the room. 

‘'Balaam’s ass spoke Hebrew and the zebra speaks 
Zebrew,” returned Fritz with mock gravity. 

Albert was still busying himself with his books, 
swallowing lumps and feigning indifference, but the 
allusions to his racial extraction pierced him like a 
dagger. He had heard this witticism before and it 
had never failed to lacerate his sensitive heart. 

“Then what’s the difference between Hanse’s don¬ 
key and his namesake, A1—ber’?” 

, '"None that I can see,” was the retort. 

Still the victim of these sallies refrained from 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


13 


combat. Though usually not given to curbing his 
tongue—and his tongue was as sharp as that of any 
one in the class—he would not bandy words with 
his arch-enemies this morning. There was hope in 
the boy’s heart that the forthcoming inheritance 
would soon liberate him from these surroundings 
altogether. 

Presently Christian Lutz’s tender arm was around 
his shoulders. Christian was his favorite class¬ 
mate and always took his part in his encounters 
with those vexatious youngsters. While Albert was 
the quicker with his tongue, Christian was more 
ready with his fist. 

“I have heard your father has become a million¬ 
aire,” Christian said. “Who’s left him this fortune— 
your father’s father?” 

“Not my father’s father,” laughed Albert, the re¬ 
membrance of the inheritance at once banishing the 
momentary bitterness from his heart. “My father’s 
father had no fortune to leave—he was a poor little 
Jew, with long whiskers as his only belongings.” 

Though uttered in a soft, jocular voice, and only 
intended for Christian’s ears, it reached those of 
Fritz. 

“Ha—ha!” he tittered. “Did you hear that, boys? 
A1—ber’s grandfather was a poor little Jew with long 
whiskers.” 

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!” 

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!” 

“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!” 

This refrain caught up by Long Kunz was ac¬ 

companied by intermittent beating of the desks with 
drum-like regularity. 


14 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


In a moment the classroom was in a wild uproar. 
Whistling, catcalls, imitations of braying asses, of 
squealing pigs, of crowing cocks, of bleating sheep, 
of neighing horses filled the air. The boys scampered 
and jumped and flung inkstands at the blackboard 
and kicked at the chairs to Fritz’s rhythmic tune 
of “A poor little Jew with long whiskers!” 

“Silence!” 

It was the intimidating voice of Father Scher, 

The youngsters, frightened by the sudden entrance 
of the schoolmaster, made a dash for their seats and 
in their mad rush capsized the benches that came 
down with resounding crashes. 

“Order!” shouted the schoolmaster. 

Father Scher stood at his desk, his right arm 
raised menacingly, his smooth face crimson with rage, 
his eyes fairly popping out of their sockets, his 
saucer-like skull-cap shoved to the back of his shaven 
head. 

Ominous silence, terror in every countenance. 

The priest’s eyes shifted from side to side, taking 
in the overturned benches, the scattered textbooks, 
the ink-bespattered blackboard. 

“Who started this?” 

No answer. The black-robed instructor took a step 
forward. 

“Who started this?” 

Restive shuffling of feet was the only response. 

“I’ll flay the hide off everyone of you if you don’t 
tell me at once who started this disorder,” the 
angered teacher cried. 

Al ber! Al—ber!” Hanse’s voice came from out- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


15 


side. It sounded like a voice in a deep forest. An 
irrepressible snicker ran through the room. 

“Who did this—who did this?” 

Scher was moving along the aisle, searching guilt 
in every countenance. Reaching Albert he halted and 
glowered at him. There was still mist in the boy’s 
eyes and his lips were twitching. 

“So it’s you, is it? You know what to expect 
and are whimpering ahead of time, hey? You are 
always the source of all mischief in the class.” His 
steady eyes were peering at the boy’s agitated face. 
Then he added, “Now if you didn’t start this, who 
did?” 

The insinuation increased the bitterness in the boy’s 
heart. He was biting the lining of his lip to hold 
his tears in check, but not a sound escaped him. 

“Won’t you answer me?” The master’s voice was 
threatening. 

Much as he hated Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz 
his pride forbade him to betray them. 

Silently, grimly, the infuriated priest turned around 
and walked back toward the blackboard, the swish¬ 
ing of his cassock striking against his heels regis¬ 
tering his measured, determined step. To the right 
of the blackboard stood a large, heavy, gnarled yel¬ 
lowish stick, an ever present warning to the class. 
Gripping the rattan firmly in his hand the priest 
faced about and retraced his steps, presently stand¬ 
ing in front of Albert. 

“Well, Albert?” 

The instructor’s stormy blue eyes were riveted 
upon the boy and the heavy cane was suspended in 
the air. 


16 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Albert only tightened his lips more firmly. 

“Speak!” 

Scher’s voice trembled with wrath. 

A scarcely perceptible smile appeared on the lower 
part of the boy’s face, which however did not escape 
the tantalized master. 

Bang! 

The stick came down with a crashing blow, but 
as Albert quickly turned aside it struck the table 
nearby and broke. 

Baffled by defeat Father Scher grew more angered 
and swung the broken end of the cane up and down 
blindly, striking at his victim until he was exhausted, 
panting audibly. 

Brandishing the fragment in his hand for a final 
blow, he missed his aim and his body swung around, 
sending his skull-cap to the floor. As he stooped to 
pick up his headgear—his shaven crown exposed 
to the gaze of the irreverent youngsters—the awed 
tension vanished and derisive laughter broke loose. 
In spite of his pain Albert’s jeering voice sounded 
louder than all the rest. His little eyes snapped di¬ 
abolic mockery in his glittering pupils. From the 
rear of the room came the mimicking of a grunting 
sucking pig. 

Confused and out of breath, Scher turned from 
side to side and his rolling eyes finally focused upon 
the grimacing face of that ragamuffin, Long Kunz. 

“Take this!” the master aspirated and gave the boy 
a sharp cut. Kunz emited a shriek'that rang through¬ 
out the cloister.. 

“I didn’t do anything,” he wailed, scratching the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


17 


smarting spot on his left shoulder—'“it was he that 
started all the trouble.” 

“Who is he?” demanded the instructor. 

He brandished the cane, but without letting it 
fall on Kunz. 

“Who is he?” he repeated. 

"A1—ber’ ” Kunz mischievously piped up, drying 
his tears. 

“So it is you—hey? I thought it couldn’t be any¬ 
one else.” 

He turned upon Albert anew, the scorn of ven¬ 
geance in his metallic voice. 

“He said his grandfather was a little Jew with 
long whiskers and made everybody laugb,” added 
Kunz, seeking to curry the teacher’s favor. 

“Hold your tongue!” Scher silenced the informer. 

Then, again turning upon Albert, he grabbed him 
by his coat collar and dragged him to the corner of 
the room, showering blows as he pulled the boy af¬ 
ter him. 

“I only said this in jest to Christian and they be¬ 
gan on me,” Albert cried defiantly and broke away 
from the priest. 

The master walked back to his desk, breathing 
hard and muttering unintelligible syllables. 

“Attention!” he presently called and rapped for 
order. 

His blanched face, his piercing eyes, the skull-cap 
set awry on his shaven crown, the lead-edged ruler 
in his hand, made the class realize that he was no 
longer to be trifled with. There had been strange 
rumors about the ferocity of the master, so when 


18 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


he gave the order to fall in line for divine service 
every pupil had his left foot forward ready to march. 

Albert was the last in line. For although his 
mother had had him excused from religious exer¬ 
cises, he always joined the class in the morning 
prayers. Not that he prayed or participated in the 
singing of hymns, but he loved the ceremonies of 
the cloister. There was something in the smell 
pervading the old stone walls, in the reverberating tones 
of the organ, in the soft light sifting in through 
the stained glass windows, in the statuary and effi¬ 
gies—everything about the monastic church filled him 
with mystery and with an indefinable sensuousness 
that, while it repelled him, caught his fancy and 
stirred in his soul a longing he was unable to fathom. 
The sound and color and scent and mystery of the 
church aroused in him the same emotion he felt when 
reading about Greek gods and goddesses. The 
chimes of the bells, the rich colors of the clergy's 
robes at high mass, the pealing organ and the melodies 
of the choir—everything connected with the Fran¬ 
ciscan cloister was so different from his father's 
church, which seemed so colorless and held nothing 
to stir his imagination. 

But no sooner did the chapel services commence 
than his mind began to wander. The prayers were 
meaningless to him even at that early age. The 
Catholic liturgy was distasteful to him. For boy 
that he was—scarcely more than eleven—he had 
already reasoned on matters of faith, and he had 
heard at home many a discussion about Voltaire and 
Rousseau, and of Kant’s Kvitik dev reinen Vernunft , 
which was then debated in every house of culture. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


19 


That morning more than on other mornings his 
brain was tortured by a thousand cross-currents. So 
many ideas crowded in upon his wearied brain that 
no single one was clear. They were all in confusion. 
The inheritance, his classmates' insults, the flogging 
—they all seemed fast scudding clouds. 

On his way out of school, Albert lagged behind 
under the high arches of the cloister, rancor in his 
breast. Tears of mortification were in his eyes. 

He soon found himself before the tall image of 
the Christ which stood on a high pedestal under 
these arches. It was carved of wood, the face 
hideously distorted, the head hanging limply like a 
wilted sun-flower, and a smear of blood between the 
projecting ribs was intended as a realistic touch. 
The morning sun, slanting under the vaults, fell 
upon the nails driven through the palms and feet 
and enhanced the ghastly figure. An unwelcome 
thought shot through the boy’s brain. No, no, he 
could not believe it; he could not believe what 
Father Scher had told the class about the Crucified. 
No, it could not be true. His people could not 
have stabbed the man who wore the crown of 
thorns and driven nails through his hand and feet. 
He knew his father and mother, who were most 
tender-hearted, and his grandfather, Doctor Holl- 
mann, and his Uncle Joseph, both of whom had 
laid their lives down in their efforts to save the 
people in the last plague. 

“They are lying—they are lying,” he muttered un¬ 
der his breath, almost sobbing—“all of them are 
lying—the priest and his books and Kunz and Fritz. 


20 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Only the likes of them could mock and spit and tor¬ 
ment and then put the blame upon others—” 

He suddenly halted. He remembered the Hebrew 
school, which he attended after the hours at the 
cloister. 

“Pokad — pokadto — pokadti —” he began to mumble 
the conjugation of the Hebrew verb he was then 
learning. Foreign as the language was to him he 
learned it much more easily than “the language 
of the dead Romans”, or even with greater facility 
than “the language of the Gods”, as he was wont 
to call Greek. 

The Hebrew school was in a narrow alley back 
of Schmallgasse. It was a small square chamber 
which served as a school room by day and as a 
living room for the teacher and his family at night. 
It had been recently whitewashed—Passover was 
coming—and the Mizrach (a picture of Jerusalem 
with the Wailing Wall in the foreground) hung 
conspicuously upon the wall facing east—a tawny, 
fly-specked patch on a background of bluish white. 
Save for a long rectangular table flanked by un¬ 
painted wooden benches, and the teacher’s stool at 
the head of it, the room was bare. 

Although he often mimicked the long bearded 
teacher, there was gladness in Albert’s heart, a glad¬ 
ness accompanied by a feeling of peace and security, 
as he wended his way to this school. No one 
mocked him here, no one imitated the ragman’s don- 
key-call. Here his very name gave him added 
distinction. Here he was a little prince, whom 
everybody loved and whose every flippant remark 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


21 


was carried from mouth to mouth, accompanied by 
convulsive laughter. 

When he entered the Hebrew school the class was 
chanting the Shir H’Shirim, that exquisite lyric poem 
known as the Song of Songs. For it was Friday, 
when the class sang the Song of Solomon in the 
quaint, traditional melody of the Babylonians. The 
teacher, at the head of the table, was swaying his 
body from side to side, leading his class in his 
strangely tuneful sing-song. 

Albert slid into his seat and joined in the chant¬ 
ing, though he perceived the furtive glances of his 
classmates, denoting even greater respects than 
ever. For they had all heard of the rumored inheri¬ 
tance. 

“ ‘Look not upon me because I am black,'" they 
sang lustily from the Hebrew text. * “Because the 
sun hath looked upon me; my mother’s children were 
angry with me and made me keeper of the vine¬ 
yard, but my own vineyard I have not kept.’ ” 

While his lips were lisping the liquid syllables of 
the poetical allegory his mind wandered to the sun¬ 
ny land of Canaan, the cradle of his people. 

A pause followed; the teacher emitted a soft “oi" 
and soon proceeded with the next chapter. 

“ ‘I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley,’ ” 
the class struck up in lively sing-song, “ ‘As the 
lily is among the thorns so is my love among the 
daughters . . . Stay me with flagons, comfort me 
with apples, for I am lovesick. For, lo, the winter 
is past, the rain is over and gone.’ ” 

His flitting fancy was not following the words, 
but the pictures they conjured up in his brain. He 


22 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


was catching his breath, his spirits were astir. 
There was langour in his being. His sorrows were 
gone, the enchanting Song of Solomon caught his 
soul in its dulcet waves and rocked him into a 
trance . . . 


II. 

The evening proved still more exciting for Albert. 
He remained seated with rapt attention, listening to 
the talk of his elders. For relatives had dropped in 
—Uncle Salomon and Aunt Braunelle and Aunt 
Hanna— and all talked enthusiastically. His father, 
David, however, did most of the talking. There was 
something of the gambler’s optimism in David Zorn. 
It did not take much to make him over-sanguine. 
Pacing up and down the room, he ran his fingers 
through his well-trimmed blond beard, and from time 
to time paused to take a mouthful of Assmanshauser, 
his favorite vintage, of which he had opened a bottle 
in celebration of the great event. 

The father’s feverish speech stirred the boy’s vola¬ 
tile imagination. Albert became restless and, unob¬ 
served, left the house for the Marktplatz, where he 
hoped to find a few loitering friends. 

But the large square was deserted; not a single 
youngster in front of the town-hall, not a pedestrian 
in sight. Even the squeaky-voiced vendor of ap¬ 
ple tarts had left his post in front of the bronze 
statue in the centre of the Marktplatz. There was 
quiet everywhere, the quietness of a town occupied 
by the enemy. For this was during the period when 
Gunsdorf was occupied by Napoleon’s troops. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


23 


Albert made his way back through one of the 
dark streets and as he turned a corner caught the 
sound of quick footsteps back of him. But before he 
had time to think he was struck with a fishing rod, 
and above the clatter of his fleeing assailant came 
the donkey-call in Shorty Fritz's familiar voice— 
“Al—ber’! Al—ber’!”. 

Albert wandered back home, a great pain in his 
head. As he walked past St. Andrew’s church, the 
pallor of the moon resting upon the Jesuit saints 
in the shadowy niches, he turned his eyes away with 
a sense of dread. There was venom in his heart. 
Somehow he blamed those sculptured saints for his 
present sufferings. Strange feelings possessed him. 
Melancholy enveloped his whole being. What if his 
father should bring back millions from Amsterdam? 
Every Fritz and every Kunz would still run after 
him and call: “Al—ber’”. 

He entered his home stealthily as if he feared his 
mother might hear his very thoughts, and when he 
retired he lay in bed, a prey to strange fantasies. 
Soon, however, his roving thoughts, like twilight 
merging into night, turned into a web of dreams . . . 

The world was coming to an end. God was stand¬ 
ing in a garden of colorful flowers placed in the 
midst of waving wiheat-fields, the marble bust of the 
broken Grecian goddess in his grandfather’s garden 
glistening in the sun. Then God rolled up the nod¬ 
ding flowers and waving grain stalks as one rolls 
up a carpet and, after placing them in a huge wagon, 
lifted up a great heap of apple blossoms and honey¬ 
suckle and piled them, too, into the van. 


24 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“Yes, all this goes to Amsterdam/’ God was say¬ 
ing to Albert’s father, who was gathering armsful 
of golden leaves and loading them into the large 
vehicle. 

Then Uncle Salomon climbed a high ladder—it 
was the same ladder the sexton climbed to trim the 
candles in the great chandelier—and took the sun 
out of the sky. For a moment he held it in the 
hollow of his hands, as the sexton often did when 
hilling the large lamp with oil, while Johann Traub, 
the tailor, who stood nearby, donned a white shroud. 

It sounded strange to hear Johann speak Hebrew, 
for Albert knew the tailor was dead and he had only 
spoken German, and he wondered if all dead people 
spoke Hebrew. But then Uncle Salomon began to 
climb down the ladder, with the sun under his arm, 
and it grew darker and darker—and only a few 
stars, suspended from the sky by rainbow-colored 
ribbons, were emitting bits of flashing light, and 
presently the gorgeous ribbons broke and the stars 
dropped like live sparks flying out of a chimney on 
a winter night . . . 

“Everything packed?” 

It was the voice of God, who was now seated on 
the box of the colossal van, and lashing the fiery 
steeds, the van disappeared in a cloud of silvery 
dust, leaving Albert behind in darkness and in tears. 
He peered into space, but could see nothing—nothing 
but an endless stretch of darkness. Finally he began 
to move aimlessly and wandered and wandered until 
he reached a freshly dug grave. Leb, the grave- 
dig’g'er, with spade in hand, was in the grave, digging 
deeper and deeper and singing merrily: “Everybody 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


25 


is dead—everybody is dead!” he hummed in his 
Westphalian dialect. Then he turned around and 
said, “Shove him in.” 

There was no one else around but himself. Al¬ 
bert wondered to whom the grave-digger was speak¬ 
ing. Presently he noticed a very aged woman, a 
toothless hag. She stepped forward, holding the head 
of a man in her apron. Harry shuddered at the sight 
of the decapitated head and wanted to flee, but 
could not move. He stood paralyzed. He wanted 
to cry but his voice was gone. Then the toothless 
hag flung the head into the grave, gave a fiendish, 
blood-curdling laugh, and jumped in after it and 
began to dance. She danced as he had often seen 
drunken peasants dance—shaking her head from side 
to side and moving her legs wearily. 

“Now I must run—they are coming,” the grave¬ 
digger exclaimed and suddenly vanished. 

Albert trembled in every limb. He was again 
alone, with nothing but the open grave before him. 
The darkness around him seemed impenetrable. He 
could not see an inch away. Only strange voices of 
invisible men reached his ears, with the sound of 
autumn leaves in his ears. Then flashes of light¬ 
ning came and revealed to him a line of men, in 
single file, coming through a gap in a ruined wall. 
He could not see the men’s faces but they wore 
little crucifixes over their breasts and swayed or¬ 
namental containers of frankincense such as he had 
seen in the Franciscan cloister. The next moment 
a strange light appeared and he saw himself sur¬ 
rounded by black robed priests, with mitres on their 
heads, and one of them gave him a sharp cut with 


26 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

a fishing rod and jeered. “Your inheritance!—your 
inheritance!” 

“What’s the matter, Albert?—You gave such a 
shriek.” 

He opened his eyes and beheld his mother at the 
foot of his bed. 

“I had a dreadful dream—” he muttered. 
“Always your dreams,” the mother said, smiling 
affectionately, as she walked out of the room. 


Weeks of tantalizing suspense followed. The let¬ 
ters that arrived from his father stirred Albert’s 
imagination. Tihey seemed to come from distant 
lands, far, far away. And the letters were full of ad¬ 
venturous episodes: of nights spent in forests be¬ 
cause of a broken axle, of weary tramps because of 
the horse’s bleeding leg, of halts at the frontier, 
and of numerous other perilous mishaps. “But,” as 
the optimistic David Zorn put it, “the road to suc¬ 
cess is always paved with rough stones.” His let¬ 
ter from Amsterdam was encouraging. No, he could 
not tell the extent of the estate, but it was huge. 
The tone of his succeding letters, however, soon grew 
less and less reassuring, hinting at intervening dif¬ 
ficulties, and he finally announced that he would re¬ 
turn home without the millions as the matter was 
necessarily complicated and he could carry on the 
rest of the negotiations through correspondence. 

His father’s return without riches was a stunning 
blow to the youth. It meant renewed drudgery and 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


27 


further contact with Father Scher and Kunz and 
Fritz. True, his father had not yet abandoned hope 
—he never did abandon 'hope—but Albert realized 
there were no prospects for a castle—at least not 
for the present and no immediate relief from the 
Franciscan school! Everything was the same as of 
old; no change, no excitement, nothing but the same 
monotonous business of irregular verbs, meaningless 
characters that stood for figures, the same black¬ 
board and alongside of it another yellow stick in 
place of the broken one with whose every projecting 
knot and gnarl Albert was so familiar. It was a dis¬ 
heartening scene to see his father alight from the 
postchaise without a single bag of gold! 

A few moments later came the great disappoint¬ 
ment, the final blow. Like the glad tidings, it came 
in the form of a letter from Holland one rainy day 
in August. The humble shop in Schmallgasse was 
deserted save for David who, as usual, was thought¬ 
fully turning the leaves of his ledger and jotting 
down some figures on the margin of a page. Zorn 
was everlastingly balancing the books, and the more 
he balanced them the less they balanced in his favor. 

One of the saddest scenes of Albert's early life 
took place on the afternoon following his father’s 
departure for Hamburg, to get financial assistance 
from his brother, Leopold Zorn, a banker. 

The mother was alone in the little shop, alone with 
her thoughts. She was not thinking of her hus¬ 
band’s reverses nor was she brooding over her own 
deprivations. She was wondering what would be¬ 
come of Albert, what would become of his promising 
gifts. For while she frequently complained of his 


28 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


idleness and of his perverseness she was confident 
that talent lay slumbering in the boy’s being. True, 
she had other children but her heart and hopes were 
centered upon her first-born. No matter what might 
become of the others, nothing must stand in Albert’s 
way. 

A new idea struck her and the thought of it sent 
a gleam of sunshine to her dark eyes. She had a 
pearl necklace of great value and diamond earrings 
that might fetch a handsome price; at least sufficient 
to see her son through Gymnasium and the Univer¬ 
sity. If she could not make a banker of him, which 
was her cherished ambition, let him be a scholar. 

But the next moment she remembered her hus¬ 
band. Adornment was his life. He had often remon¬ 
strated against her aversion for wearing jewels. 

After a space she saw a way out. Ludwig Grimm, 
the money-lender at the Marktplatz, would advance 
her a considerable amount on her necklace. In or¬ 
der to spare her husband’s feelings she would not 
tell him of this until business had improved when 
she could redeem her valuables. No one need know 
of this—not a soul—and she was sure Grimm would 
tell no one. 

Albert came into the shop as his mother was about 
to leave on her secret errand. The boy’s eyes were 
downcast, there was pallor in his cheeks. For he, 
too, had done his share of brooding since the last 
ray of hope of the heritage was gone. 

“Mother,” he said abruptly, “I’ll take no more 
private lessons. I—” 

“Albert!” 

She had hired a music teacher to teach him the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


29 


violin, and her present ejaculation was the sudden 
outlet of her accumulated grief. 

For a brief moment Albert weakened, his mother's 
evident unhappiness checked his flow of words, but 
he soon gained courage. 

“Mother, dear, I’ll be no burden to you," he burst 
out. “I know—I understand—I won’t let you spend 
your last groschen on me—” 

“Albert!" she cried, reproach and grief mingled 
in her tone. “You won't break your mother's heart. 
Since when have my children become a burden to 
me?" 

“But, mother dearest," the boy begged, tears in 
his eyes, “I am old enough to be apprenticed—" 

“And give up all hope?—Albert!" 

The mere intimation of surrender—giving up the 
chance of becoming a great man, a scholar if not a 
banker—cut her to the very heart. 

The boy trembled perceptibly. His mother had 
touched a vibrating chord in his being. For every 
thought of his, every dream and fancy, was of the 
future. And he was confident of the future; even 
more confident than his mother; for every prophetic 
little Samuel hears the voice of God before it reaches 
the ears of the blind Eli, though he may not at first 
recognize the voice that calls him. 

“Don't worry, Albert dearest," the mother sobbed, 
sunshine through her tears, “the war will soon be 
over, business will improve, and you will not be 
handicapped for want of money." 


30 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Late that afternoon, in the dimmest twilight, she 
locked the shop on Schmallgasse, walked down the 
narrow street, and turned into the Marktplatz, an 
air of stealth in her movements. Frequently she 
glanced this way and that, like a hunted criminal, 
and hugged a little packet to her breast. When 
she reached Ludwig Grimm's pawnshop she halted, 
hesitated a moment, took a step backwards, halted 
again, and then, with a sudden lurch forward, darted 
up the three stone steps that led to Grimm's and 
opened the door with a resolute jerk. 



THE LORELEI. 


I. 

N EARLY four years had passed in the life of 
the dreamy youth. They had been turbulent, 
epoch-making years, years full of anguish and 
unabated fear. Napoleon’s armies had swept South 
as far as the Mediterranean and beyond, had also 
pushed their way East as far as the ancient capital 
of Russia, the whole world breathlessly awaiting 
the ultimate fate of the conqueror. For mingled with 
the fear of the invader was the conviction that no mat¬ 
ter how herioc, he must meet with defeat in the end. 
When would the end come? The vanquished nations 
had hoped against hope, but finally beheld a sign 
from Heaven in the devouring flames of Moscow. 
A lull followed, the lull before an impeding storm. 
Spring had arrived, and with it came the nervous 
tension of prolonged suspense. Foreboding was in 
the air. The very elements foretold a terrific strug¬ 
gle. Westphalia and all of northern Germany was 
visited by devastating storms. On clear nights the 
superstitious saw iiji the heavens blood-red stars in 
the shape of besoms with long handles—the uner¬ 
ring omen of bloody battles! Everybody was certain 
that a gripping conflict between God and the devil 
31 


32 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


was at hand, but no one knew on which side was 
God and on which the devil. 

But what did it all matter to Albert Zorn? Nero 
fiddled while Rome was burning; Goethe rhymed 
sweet lyrics and made love to Christiane Vulpius 
while the enemy was at the gates of Weimar; on the 
very day that the Battle of Jena was fought, Schl'e- 
gel, the savant of Jena, unconcernedly dispatched a 
manuscript to his publisher. 

Albert was only thinking of his hero, the Emperor. 
Tears were in the boy's eyes as he listened to the 
reports of the Emperor's flight from the Russian 
steppes, mortification in his soul as he looked upon 
the foot-weary, wan, hollow-eyed, bedraggled forms 
of the straggling grenadiers, making their way home 
from the snowfields of Smolensk. However, even the 
stirring news of lost battles, the flying rumors of 
approaching clashes, the roar of death-dealing can¬ 
non, were to him mere tales of adventure romantical¬ 
ly told. Spring had come, the sun was shining bril¬ 
liantly, perfume was in the air, flowers were un¬ 
folding treasures of gold and silver and dazzling ru¬ 
bies, the buds were revealing depositories of emerald 
and opal and ermine, the nightingales were singing 
of love and passion and death—adolescence's holy 
trinity and the banks of the Rhine were re-echoing 
the mystic legends of bygone days. 

He had even failed to note the difference between 
his father's brown coat with a sfieen of genteel 
shabbiness and his own clothes of good quality and 
latest mode, and the disparity between his mother’s 
frocks, antedating the French occupation, and those 
of his sister in the fashion of the day. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


33 


His mind was occupied with other thoughts. He 
was aloof and alone. He never had many friends 
but always had at least one devoted comrade, who 
accompanied him on his rambles through the woods 
on the outskirts of the city or lay with him out¬ 
stretched on the grassy bank of the Rhine and 
listened to his exuberant speeches. Christian Lutz 
was still his trusted friend. Christian was to Albert 
what Jonathan was to that poetical shepherd boy, 
David. Perhaps the Psalmist's love for the son of 
King Saul was likewise strengthened by the latter's 
willingness to listen. Albert poured into Christian's 
ears all his secret hopes and tormenting despair. 
Not infrequently the hopes and despair came almost 
at once. In the midst of an outpouring of his poetic 
fervor despair would seize him. One day he read 
a glowing account of Byron in a German periodical. 
The author of “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage” was only 
in the early twenties and he, Albert, was already 
sixteen and had done nothing! Consumed with burn¬ 
ing envy he tossed on the grass in utter misery, 
tears rolling down his pale cheeks. He called him¬ 
self a vain coxcomb, a braggart without a spark of 
talent. But presently his loyal friend began to con¬ 
tradict his self-accusations. Christian reminded him 
of the drama in verse he was planning, and after all 
one was not so very old at sixteen. Albert remained 
quiet for a space, listening to his friend's comforting, 
pulling blades of grass by the roots and absently 
tearing them into tiny bits. And finally he burst 
out impetuously, “I know, Christian, I know I’ll 
be a great poet—I’ll write better than Wilhelm Mul¬ 
ler, better than—Becoming conscious of his 


34 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


boasting he checked himself and, producing a few 
sheets from his breast pocket, began to read the ver¬ 
ses he had penned the evening before. And Christ¬ 
ian was such an encouraging listener! His enthu¬ 
siasm was boundless. “Albert, these verses are as 
beautiful as any of Uhland’s!” he exclaimed. 

Albert blushed scarlet. He had thought that him¬ 
self but dared not utter such blasphemy. For to 
Albert at this stage of his life, Uhland was the high¬ 
est of all high. It was as if some second rate god of 
antiquity boasted of a mightiness surpassing that of 
Zeus. 

In moods like these he would steal out of the 
house, his visored cap over his eyes, and wander aim¬ 
lessly through the maze of crooked, narrow streets, 
driven by irresistible impulses, until he would find 
himself on the bank of his beloved river. Here 
there were a thousand objects to dissipate his gloom. 
The gently flowing stream, the floating boats, the 
changing tints of the sky, the little wildflowers turn¬ 
ing their pretty faces up to him like coquettish young 
maidens. And the ruins of the castle on the bank 
of the Rhine abounded in mystery. He often paused, 
pensively listening to the moaning and sighing of 
the wind-driven waves against those ruins with a 
secret awe N creeping into his being. Was that the 
rustling of her silk dress—the dress of the “headless 
princess”, of whom his nurse had told him in his 
childhood? But the headless princess only came out 
of the ruins on moonlight nights! Perhaps they 
were the stealthy footsteps of the fair young shep¬ 
herd, looking longingly at the battlements in hope 
of catching a glimpse of his beloved princess! 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


35 


His eyes opened, and circles seemed to go round 
and round—circles of fanciful colors like those he 
had often seen when pressing his eyes against his 
pillows—and there was a strange surging in his 
blood, tumult in his head. His heart filled with a 
thousand longings, a thousand yearnings, yearnings 
and longings indefinite, inarticulate. He was only 
conscious of an aching restlessness, of an irritating 
strife within him . . . 

Throwing himself upon the grassy bank, he would 
lie listlessly for a time, blankly staring at the sky, 
only half-conscious of chirping birds around him. 
Gradually, slowly, strands of thought would begin 
to come—desultory, fugitive, disconnected fibres of 
thought, like flying gossamer. 

Sometimes other ambitions stirred his being. His 
mother had often spoken of a military career for him. 
His mind would skip to Napoleon, the hero he had 
worshipped ever since he could remember. He would 
see himself in the role of a warrior, mounted upon 
a spirited little white horse, as he had once seen 
Napoleon. His vivid imagination would behold the 
battlefields, littered with bleeding men and horses, 
the cry of agony in his ears . . . 

No, no, not that! He could not bear the sight of 
blood, the shriek of pain. He could not be a great 
warrior. 

Again his fancy drifted. He recalled “The Life 
and Adventures of the Ingenious Knight, Don Qui¬ 
xote de la Mancha,” which he had read and reread 
with such delight. He would like to be a warrior 
without being obliged to shed blood, a hero like Don 
Quixote. Presently the stories of Quixote became 


36 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


fused with those he had heard of his great-uncle, 
Nathan Hollmann, of whose travels and adventures 
his aunts had told him so many grotesque tales arid 
whose writings he had discovered in a dusty chest 
in his grandfather’s attic. Like his great-uncle he 
would also be dressed in an Asiatic costume and 
smoke a long Turkish pipe and speak Arabic and 
travel all over “the seven seas” and through Moroc¬ 
co and Spain and the deserts of Egypt and make a 
pilgrimage to the Holy City and perhaps, like him, 
see a vision on Mount Moriah! From the fantastic 
image of his great-uncle to a Sheik of the Bedouins 
was but a step. He visualized himself traveling with 
long trains of caravans and robber bands, scouring 
the dense forests of Arabia for victims (when Al¬ 
bert’s imagination took flight it disregarded geog¬ 
raphy). The notion of a robber chief appealed to 
him. The romantic scenes from “Die Rauber” 
haunted him. Of course, he would not really rob 
people—he could not think of taking anything away 
from anybody—but he would lead the robber bands 
through the immense woods and—and in chorus— 
sing beautiful songs, the echoes resounding through 
hill and dale . . . 

Lying thus, his fancy at large, the arabesque tales 
about his great-uncle eventually merged into those 
of the knight errant. Cervantes and Don Quixote 
and his great-uncle became one and the same per¬ 
son, and he himself, for the moment, was the rein¬ 
carnation of them all. He wished he could go 
away—far, far away—to Morocco, to Turkey, to 
the “dense forests” of Arabia, and perchance be 
thrown into an underground dungeon, penetrated 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


37 


only by the stray rays of the sun, mildew smells 
everywhere, with clanking chains and great keys 
turning in rusty locks, with big fat mice—beautiful, 
snow-white mice—darting back and forth, the tur¬ 
bulent waters of a surrounding moat lapping against 
the prison walls darkened with age. His imaginary 
confinement in the dungeon, however, did not inter¬ 
fere with his adventurous travels. His imprison¬ 
ment was simultaneous with his roving with caravans 
of camels and donkeys and dromedaries^ and ele¬ 
phants whose tusks glistened in the blazing sun of 
the Orient . . . 


H. 

His constant day-dreaming and the feeding of 
his imagination on poetry and romance cost Albert 
much misery at the end of every semester. He in¬ 
variably failed in all studies except literature and 
philosophy. 

On his arrival home one afternoon he found Father 
Schumacher engaged in a serious conversation with 
his mother. Father Schumacher was a picturesque 
figure, prematurely gray with a fine head set upon 
broad shoulders and a pair of brown eyes that 
twinkled mirthfully. There was something in his 
shrewd eyes that seemed to say, “I know all the 
meanness and frailties of human nature, I know this 
earthly planet is no paradise, but we are here and 
must make the best of it.” He was loved by all 
regardless of creed. After the French had conquered 


38 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the city and reopened the Lyceum, he was named 
rector. The new ruler knew that Father Schumacher 
could be trusted in spite of his German allegiance. 
He was very learned and familiar with all the phil¬ 
osophies—from Socrates to Kant—which he taught 
at the Lyceum without, however, interfering with 
his loyalty to Rome. 

The friendship between the former priest and 
Bessie Zorn ran back to the time she was a little 
girl, when he was a classmate of her brother, Jo¬ 
seph, and was almost a daily visitor at her father’s 
home. Since her father’s death and her marriage to 
David, Father Schumacher was a frequent visitor 
at the Zorn home, and of late Albert had been an 
added attraction. The rector was very fond of the 
boy and often gave the mother encouragement when 
her enthusiasm waned. 

Albert was about to enter the living-room, where 
his mother and the visitor were seated, when he over¬ 
heard his mother saying, “Indeed, he is quite a prob¬ 
lem. If I could only keep him away from poetry 
and French novels I could knock his poetic nonsense 
out of his head.” 

“I’ve let him attend my class in philosophy,” the 
rector struck in. “Perhaps that will put some reason 
into his head.” 

“Yes, that might turn him into a Kantian,” laughed 
the mother, and I don’t know which is worse, a 
befogged Kantian or a beggarly rhymster.” After 
the briefest pause she added, “I am going to get him 
a special tutor for mathematics. He doesn’t seem 
to grasp any scientific subject—I’d like him to study 
banking.” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


39 


“You’ll never make a banker of that boy,” he re¬ 
plied. “He isn’t cut out for a mercantile career and 
you’ll but waste your efforts. Why don’t you give 
him to the Church? I might be able to be of good 
service to you in that direction. I know quite a few 
dignitaries in Rome.” 

“I don’t think a priest’s robe would be becoming 
to Albert’s style of beauty,” she said laughingly. 

“Ah, you haven’t seen how chic the abbes in Rome 
wear their garb,” he returned in a tone of levity. 

“No, I am afraid this is out of the question.” 

“It’s better to give him to Rome than to Greece,” 
the former priest pressed his point symbolically. 
“It was the Church that saved the Italian masters 
from idolatry. Don’t you think it would have been 
far better for Voltaire, and mankind, if he had been 
won by the Church? I know Albert, he needs the 
Church. He might carve for himself a glorious 
career in Rome!” 

“Personally I’d have him anything rather than a 
rhymster,” the mother burst out passionately, with¬ 
out concealing her horror at such a prospect. 

“But with the present unrest what else is left for 
a gifted young man?” proceeded the Jesuit. Then 
he added in a lower voice, “One day we are Prussian, 
the next French, and We may be Russian some day, 
God only knows. And while you know how free I 
am from prejudice, the boy’s faith will be in his way. 
I hear that the Jews in Berlin have almost exhausted 
the holy water of the baptismal font there.” He 
laughed indulgently as he referred) to the great num¬ 
ber of conversions in the Prussian capital. 

“No one knows better than you,” she presently 


40 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


said, “that you can't make a good Christian of a 
good Jew. The most you can do is to turn a bad 
Jew into a worse Christian/’ 

They both laughed amicably. 

“Honestly, I don’t believe Albert has a religious 
sense,” she added a moment later. “Nothing is 
too sacred for him to make fun of.” 

“That’s only the boy’s sense of humor,” he con¬ 
tradicted her. “He has more religion than you 
think. Sentiments of any kind are impossible with¬ 
out a religious sense, and Albert is full of senti¬ 
ment—” 

Albert’s entrance interrupted further conversation. 
Bowing, he walked up to Father Schumacher and 
kissed his extended soft white hand. 

The rector’s eyes now rested upon the boy’s face 
with renewed interest. He was still thinking of his 
suggestion to the mother. Albert’s narrowed eyes 
registered acute sensitiveness. The mother’s eyes 
also fell upon her son as if she, too, had noticed 
the peculiar expression on his countenance for the 
first time. 

“What a pity he was not born a Catholic,” mut¬ 
tered the former priest as Albert bowed out of the 
room. 

When the rector was gone the mother took her 
son in hand. She did not scold him—she never 
scolded him—she only tried to reason with him. 

“Albert, dearest, what will become of you?” she 
pleaded. 

He said nothing. He stood like an accused at the 
bar of justice, guilt in his heart. 

“How can you ever amount to anything unless you 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


41 


pass your examinations—especiallly in mathematics?” 
she proceeded. 

The unshed tears in the mother’s eyes overflowed. 
His eyes, too, began to fill. He was not grieved 
because he had failed in mathematics but it pained 
him to have his mother worried. He was silent. 
He had no words of justification. Soon his chin 
began to quiver, his lips to twitch, and his eyelashes 
trembled. 

“Father’s business is going from bad to worse," 
she resumed in a kind, though plaintive, tone, “and 
what can one do without money? Everybody thinks 
we are well-to-do, but we have hardly anything. 
If it weren’t for Uncle Leopold we would have been 
on the point of starvation long before this.” 

Still not a word from Albert. Only hot tears 
burned his tender eyelids. 

Suddenly, without a word, he flung his arms around 
his mother and kissed her tearstained cheeks. In¬ 
deed, henceforth he would apply himself to mathe¬ 
matics and would study hard, day and night. 

But before long he had again fallen from grace, 
despite his steadfast efforts to please his mother. 
This realization did not dawn upon him until toward 
the close of the following term. With a heart filled 
with contrition he reviewed the past. Alas! he had 
spent most of his time on poetry and novels and 
mythology but had scarcely given more than fleeting 
glances to his other studies. 

Conscious of guilt he sought to justify himself to 
himself. W r ith such an indulgent audience he had 
no difficulty in purging himself of all wrong. What 
difference did it really make to him whether a plus 


42 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


b equaled x or sixteen? What was it to him that 
the sum of the interior angles of a polygon equaled 
two right angles, taken as many times, less two, 
as the figures had sides? Of what concern to him 
was the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against his 
brother Artaxerxes thousands of years ago when a 
greater expedition of a greater hero had so recently 
ended disastrously! Why tax his brain with the 
Greek aorist and the Latin grammar and the stilted 
speeches of Clearches? Ah, if he could only become 
a great man without being compelled to learn these 
things! 

But his mother had impressed upon him again 
and again that the road to greatness lay through a 
labyrinth of angles and equations and logarithms, 
with impediments consisting of irregular verbs of de¬ 
cayed Romans, of dead Greeks, and of Hebrews who 
would not die! 


III. 


Sex, however, had not yet played a definite part in 
his existence. Once when declaiming “Der Tau- 
cher” at a school celebration his roving eye caught 
sight of the pretty daughter of a well known official 
in the audience and he was so affected by her beauty 
that speech left him. The teacher, back on the 
speaker’s platform, endeavored to prompt him, think- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


43 


ing he had forgotten the lines, but to no purpose. 
Albert’s eyes were riveted upon that beautiful vision 
and he could not proceed. Now and then he had 
received other jolts of passion—the convulsive jolts 
of adolescence—but he had brooded over them for 
short periods, cherished them for a while, and finally 
dismissed them from his mind. 

Thus several years had passed full of intermittent 
flitting fancies, emotions that were meaningless to 
him. 

One day a sudden change took place in him. 
Something had happened that was fixed in his mind. 
He was conscious of sentiments and feelings that 
were of the same nature that he had experienced 
before and yet were different. Prior to this he could 
not define the strange longings of his being, now 
they spoke to him in unmistakable terms; the voice 
was tumultous; he could not shut it out. 

He was passing the Witch’s hut, which stood at 
the end of the town, close by the Rhine. No one 
called her by her real name, Graettel, but only by 
the name of the Witch. She gave potions to love¬ 
lorn maidens and exorcised evil spirits from unclean 
bodies. 

He suddenly stopped. For a bare second he im¬ 
agined a mermaid had leaped to the shore. Surely 
no mermaid had finer golden hair shimmering with 
irridescent colors! 

Filled with a sense of mystery, strangely mingled 
with slumbering memories of the past, he took a 
step nearer the straw-thatched hovel but at the sound 
of his footsteps the skein of golden hair was lifted 
as if by an invisible hand and presently he beheld 


44 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


a pair of great dark eyes peering at him. Again 
he thought it an optic illusion, but the sweet mur¬ 
murs of the Rhine were in his ears, a thousand 
legends of the ruins of castles in his brain, the mer¬ 
maids of folklore in his memory; a forest singer 
was balancing himself on a bough of the large elm 
in front of the hut, singing a melody of his own. 
Then a peal of laughter—the musical laughter of a 
sweet girlish voice—and the apparition vanished. 

Albert was breathing fast, his whole frame aquiver. 
The next moment he took a step forward and re¬ 
mained standing at the open door. A glance within 
revealed no change since he had visited here with 
his nurse in his childhood, and there was but little 
change without. 

He stood at the threshold and peered inside with 
increased curiosity, seeing no one. It seemed empty 
save for an unpainted table and a few backless chairs 
—the same as of old. 

A warbling song—a folksong he used to hear in 
his childhood—reached his ears. It was sung in a 
minor key, and that in suppressed tones. Soon the 
melody ceased and the great dark eyes peeped out of 
the opening of a partition, the body hidden from 
view. 

“Hedwiga!” he cried and stepped inside. 

A barefooted girl emerged, her head bent sideways, 
running a comb through her long reddish golden 
tresses. She continued combing her hair uncon¬ 
cernedly, a bewitching smile in her eyes. 

“Hedwiga, how you have grown!” Albert cried 
gleefully, staring at her tall, slender form, her thin 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


45 


skirt clinging to her legs “like the wet drapery of a 
statue.” 

Gathering her golden mane in her left hand she 
tossed it back and, pulling a hair pin from between 
her lips, fastened it close to the roots, the ends hang¬ 
ing loosely down over her shoulders. 

“You have grown, too,” she presently said, looking 
at him with her large candid eyes. Then she ad¬ 
ded, “I am already sixteen, going on seventeen.” 

“So am I sixteen,” he caught his breath, thrilled at 
the thought of being the same age as she. “Do you 
remember me?” 

“You are Zippel’s boy (Zippel had been his nurse) 
—of course, I remember you. Don't you remember 
how we used to play in the yard while Aunt Graet- 
tel and Zippel talked and talked and talked—” 

“And do you remember how we used to play ‘Lost 
in the woods’?” he reminded her, “and Zippel and 
your Aunt couldn’t find us, and we lay hidden under 
the old broken boat, laughing and watching your 
Aunt and Zippel through the cracks as they ran 
around and wrung their hands?” 

They both laughed merrily. At every stage of life 
the preceding stage is childhood, reminiscent of 
things to laugh at. 

“Where have you been?” he soon asked her, set¬ 
tling down astride a backless chair. 

“With my grandfather near Freiburg—-we lived 
near the Schwarzwald—but he died and then grand¬ 
ma died and then I had nobody but Aunt Graettel— 
she is my great-aunt—and she brought me here.” 

She heaved a sigh, sadness coming over her face. 


46 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

"Why didn’t you go to your mother?” he asked 
naively. 

"I have no mother—I have no father either—they 
had died before I was two—my father was killed by 
the thieves.—”. 

She was finishing her toilet as she spoke, having 
donned a flaming red blouse, and halted for a mo¬ 
ment absently, staring blankly in front of her. 

"Was your father a headman, too?” 

She nodded, the sadness of her face deepening, and 
catching her breath she said, "My father was a head¬ 
man and his father and my grandfather’s father, also 
my mother’s father. Aunt Graettel is my grandfather’s 
sister.” 

Albert gave an involuntary shudder. Zippel had 
told him so many gruesome tales about headmen. 
They were all cursed and must cut off men’s heads 
whether they wanted to or not. Nobody associated 
with headmen or their children and, like a race 
apart, lived isolated and intermarried only among 
themselves. 

"Are you going to be here long?” he asked. 

She was hooking her blouse, which fastened on the 
side, and her eyes were downcast, following her 
nimble fingers. 

"I have no other place to go to,” she presently 
replied. "And I am glad my grandma died so I could 
come here.” 

Albert again shuddered. He was not glad his 
grandmother had died. 

"Did she beat you?” 

"No, she didn’t beat me—I wouldn’t let anyone 
beat me—.” She turned her eyes fiercely upon him as 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


47 


if he had threatened her. “But it was with those 
three old hags at their distaffs, drinking and quar¬ 
reling all the time—from morning till night—oh, I 
am glad they are all dead!” 

“Your Aunt Graettel is good to you, isn’t she?” 
Albert’s voice was sympathetic. He was glad Hed- 
wiga was no more with those drinking witches. 

“She is very good to me. She is usually in town 
all day, and when she gets back she always brings 
me something nice. And I sit on the bank, down 
the slope, and watch the skiffs go by, and when 
nobody is around I go swimming on the edge of the 
river—.” 

Albert held his breath. In his imagination he 
followed her down the slope and watched the skiffs 
go by and went swimming with her. He raised his 
eyes to her and blushed scarlet. A flitting thought 
had sent a quiver through his frame. She was 
now seated on a stool close to him. He had become 
conscious of her bare feet and of her white throat 
and slender shoulders. He wished to say something 
but his mouth was dry and his throat was parched. 
He was swallowing lumps. 

Hedwiga glanced at him and, as if divining his 
thoughts, also blushed. To hide her passing thought 
she emitted a little laugh. 

They were both silent for a moment and self-con¬ 
scious. Then he raised his eyes and stared at her 
boldly. She gave him a quick glance and began 
to laugh again. Rising from his chair he wished to 
stretch out his hand and touch her face—the tip of 
her slightly upturned nose and the curving red of her 
lips. 


48 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


He was soon standing at the door, going yet wish¬ 
ing he could stay. She, too, was standing, her head 
a trifle inclined to one side. 

“How tall you are!” he stammered. 

This was not what he wished to say, but he men¬ 
tally scanned her from head to foot and the words 
Leaped to his lips uninvited. 

“I am not much taller than you,” she said. 

And stepping up close to him she placed her shoul¬ 
der against his. 

What was it he felt at the contact with her shoul¬ 
der? He recalled the sensation again and again 
on his way home. It was as if the smooth little 
hand of a babe were passing and repassing that spot; 
he experienced a sensation of yielding to caresses: 
and yet this very sensuousness had made him speech¬ 
less. It occurred to him later that he had not bid¬ 
den her goodbye as they parted. 

IV. 

Albert’s mind was like a sponge thrown into 
water, absorbing while seemingly inactive. Subcon¬ 
sciously he was studying every face, no matter how 
often he had seen it; every object, however com¬ 
monplace, aroused his curiosity. 

When he left Hedwiga his mind was a blank. 
He walked on blindly, seemingly thoughtful but 
really thinking of nothing. He was conscious of 
joy tempered by timidity—but without thinking of 
anything in particular. 

Nearing his home he began to think of her more 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


49 


specifically. She was a living image. The image 
grew in vividness. His eyes almost closed now— 
his eyelids had come together automatically—and 
all objects disappeared save her form. Her slender 
figure and that clinging, draping skirt around hei 
legs; her loose hair of dazzling tints—red and gold 
mixed with ochre—and those wonderful eyes of her 
—they looked at him so piteously and yet so proudly. 
He was breathing fast, a warm glow was on his 
face, his full lips parted. For the moment his mouth 
seemed strikingly feminine—the mouth of a young 
woman alive to stirring passion. 

No, he was not conscious of sex; at least, not 
of the sex-consciousness he had often experienced. 
Its rude call was absent. He could not define the 
difference, but the . strange desires he had felt at the 
sight of the barefooted peasant girls working in the 
fields were wanting. All that he desired at present 
was to go back to that hut—to the home of the 
Witch so full of dread and mystery—and just sit 
and look at Hedwiga. 

He told no one of his visit to the Free House, 
as the Witch’s hovel was called. He did not even 
make mention of this to his sister, the keeper of all 
his secrets, nor even to Christian, but he thought of 
Hedwiga every minute. 

After much day-dreaming Albert took a stroll in 
the direction of the Witch’s house. He had not yet 
definitely decided to pay her another call, but was 
sauntering aimlessly on the road leading to the 
Witch’s house. Before long he found himself peri¬ 
lously near the hut. Fie first caught sight of the 
elm tree. It was the same hour of the day he had 


50 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


chanced by the first time. Without the calculation 
of the maturer lover he vaguely hoped that he would 
again find her alone—perhaps again drying her 
hair in the sun. His heart beat loudly as he ap¬ 
proached the little yard, covered with weeds and 
grass. The blistered front door was shut. 

He mounted the steps and paused on the slab at 
the threshold, trembling. It was a hot afternoon, 
without a sound in the air. The old elm tree with 
the overhanging branches and parched leaves seemed 
like an old horse left standing unsheltered in the 
blazing sun. The Rhine flowed noiselessly on, with 
broad folds of gray reflecting the patches of cloud 
in the sky. 

He felt certain that no one was in the hut, yet he 
knocked on the door boldly. It gave him pleasure to 
knock on that door. Every rap sounded in his ears 
as if he were voicing Hedwiga’s name loudly. 

Suddenly the door opened and fear seized him. 
He did not know why sudden fear had taken pos¬ 
session of him. Before him stood Hedwiga in the 
same clinging skirt, ragged at the hem, the same 
flaming red blouse reaching to her waist, her hair 
falling over her shoulders in long tresses. She ap¬ 
peared to him like the West Indian quadroon he 
had once seen. He forgot to greet her and only 
mumbled that it was a hot day. 

She held the door open without saying a word. 
Unlike at their former meeting she now seemed con¬ 
fused and her confusion was mingled with timidity. 
The scorching heat was reflected in the iris of her 
eyes. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


51 


Without invitation he went in and sat down in 
the same backless chair. 

“I keep the door closed because that keeps the 
heat out of the house,” she said as she closed the 
door. 

He was conscious of isolation, of aloneness with 
her. She was knitting, and settling on her stool she 
continued to work, her eyes downcast. 

“Why do you knit such heavy woolen stockings 
in the summer?” he asked, watching the nimble 
movements of her long fingers, the frequent jerks 
of her elbows, and the intermittent clicks of the 
needles. 

“Why do squirrels store nuts in the summer?” 
she answered with a counterquestion, and gave a 
little metallic laugh. 

Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at him 
for a bare second, her lashes quivering, a faint blush 
on her cheeks. 

He held his breath. The impulse he had felt the 
first time—the impulse to touch the tip of her nose 
and the curving red of her lips—came upon him 
overwhelmingly; her knees, outlined through her 
thin skirt, tempted him. His eyes soon fell upon 
the hook where the skirt was fastened at the waist. 
An impulse seized him to touch that, too. There 
seemed something endearing about that hook. 

He spent an awkward hour and called himself an 
idiot as he wended his way home that afternoon. 
She was kindly enough to have manifested a desire to 
have him stay longer, but he had suddenly risen 
and left. 

As soon as he was out of the hut he wished to go 


52 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


back, and wondered what had made him depart so 
abruptly, yet even as he wondered he pressed on 
resolutely toward home. 

"I thought your eyes were blue, but they are 
only green,” she had remarked. A few minutes be¬ 
fore she had said something about the smallness 
of his eyes and the frailty of his body. He thought 
there was a touch of mockery in her voice as she 
said that. And the idea of asking him whether he 
liked songs! 

He did not pity her any longer. On the former 
occasion she had appeared humble, almost obse¬ 
quious; today he scented pride. On his return home he 
determined to dismiss her from his mind. 


V. 

He might have dismissed Hedwiga from his mind 
had not a kindhearted gossip carried the report of 
his visit to his parents. Father and Mother held 
council. They had not been much concerned about 
their son's religious belief, but the mother's eye 
was ever vigilant as to his morals. 

“You had better talk to him,” David Zorn said. 
“He must stop these visits. You can never tell 
what they might lead to at his tender age.” 

Mrs. Zorn spent a troublesome night over this. 
She was alarmed but she did not wish to seem too 
antagonistic. She knew the effect of antagonism up¬ 
on her impetuous, high-strung son. So she broached 
the subject with seeming levity, with playfulness 
almost. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


53 


“But you know, Albert dear, a headman's daughter 
is no company for Doctor Hollman's grandson," 
she urged persuasively. 

“The girl isn't to blame because her father was a 
headman," he returned. “Why should she bear the 
sins of her fathers?" 

The longer his mother argued the more reasons 
he found against her arguments. It was unjust to 
make the poor girl an outcast because her father had 
been an executioner, he insisted. 

When he left his mother his heart was full of pity, 
for the poor outcast. He brooded over her unfor¬ 
tunate position. He could not dismiss her image 
from his mind—the slender frame draped by that 
clinging skirt! His imagination lent color to the 
misery of the child of the accursed. He visualized 
her past. He saw her in the Black Forest sur¬ 
rounded by those old, toothless hags, drinking and 
quarreling and whirring their spinning wheels. He 
saw her ragged garments, her little bare feet curled 
under her, her unkempt golden hair, her beautiful 
eyes. The picture of her as a child was blended 
with that of the present day Hedwiga. 

In his cogitation he soon found himself fighting 
for a principle. He did not listen to the throbbing 
of his boyish heart, to the seething of the blood of 
youth, which were propelling him toward the Free 
House with a power of their own. He persuaded 
himself that it was his keen sense of justice that 
forced him to defy his mother's wishes. 

It was summer time, the thrushes were singing, 
the roses were in bloom, the call of flocks was heard 
over plain and meadow, the sunlight rested on hill 


54 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


and dale; it was summer and the morning dew of 
love was on Albert’s cheeks. 

He called at the Witch’s again and again; and 
the more often he came the more natural it seemed 
to be with her. The constraint had soon worn off 
and they were children again—boy and girl. When 
Aunt Graettel was at home he talked to her, and she 
told him many weird tales of her husband and his 
coterie of headmen. 

“That sword cut off more than a hundred heads,” 
she pointed to a large, shining sabre standing in a 
corner. 

Albert shuddered at the sight of the bloody weapon. 

“My husband could always tell beforehand when 
he would be called upon to perform his work,” the 
Witch added proudly. “When the sword quivered 
and emitted a strange sound my husband knew some 
thief’s head was to come off.” 

But most of the time he found Hedwiga alone 
and he soon discovered that she could sing beautiful 
songs of loving knights and beloved princesses and 
shepherds on the hills. 

While the cannons were roaring at Waterloo and 
crushing the armies of the Emperor he worshipped, 
Albert Zorn was seated in the little hut on the 
Rhine, listening to Hedwiga’s melodies; and intoxi¬ 
cated with love rushed to translate his sentiments 
into sweet rhymes. 

Thus the summer passed., and winter came, fie 
had left the Lyceum and was now attending the 
Realschule. His mother was steadfast in her reso¬ 
lution to make a banker of him. She saw great 
possibilities in the financial world as soon as the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


55 


terms' of peace were definitely settled. For Napoleon 
had already been decisively beaten and the rulers 
of the other nations were holding a momentous 
conference. 

One afternoon he found Hedwiga in a strange 
mood. It was midwinter, the river asleep under 
blankets of the softest down, the long arms of the 
large elm tree covered with the whitest fleece, and 
inside the hut the cozy, stuffy warmth of a low 
ceiling, crackling logs in an open oven and flames 
wrapped in dense smoke, rolling into the flue with 
a roaring glare. Hedwiga was seated opposite the 
fire, her left elbow on her knee, her chin in the open 
palm of her hand, her cheeks and eyes aglow, warb¬ 
ling a weird song. 

Albert was silent. He had had a strange dream 
about her the night before and her present preoccu¬ 
pation reminded him of the dream. He thought he 
had seen her before in precisely the same environ¬ 
ments and in the same pose. His imagination often 
played him pranks of this sort. 

With eyes narrowed, he watched the light in her 
eyes, the contour of her cheeks, the shadowy white 
of her throat and the slight movement of her 
breasts. Yes, he knew the song she was humming. 
Zippel used to sing it to him in his childhood. 

Hedwiga’s eyes closed and her red lips trembled. 
Then silence; no sound save that of the roaring 
fire. 

“Ich will kiissen —■” he chimed in, finishing the 
stanza. 

He paused and looked yearningly at her red lips, 


56 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

which were slightly parted against the dazzling 
white of her teeth. 

Hedwiga opened her great dark eyes, turned them 
upon him teasingly, and suddenly jumped up from 
her low seat; and dashing across the room seized the 
shining sword—the sword that had cut off a hundred 
heads—and brandishing it in the air whirled around 
and sang again of the Great Otilje and his shining 
sword, pointing the deadly weapon at his breast every 
time she faced him. 

“Hedwiga!” 

But her wild song drowned his whispered mur¬ 
murs. There was provoking defiance in her roguish 
^ycs, almost a trace of malevolence in her face as she 
came close to him, barely touching him, and then 
swung away in her mad dance with the glittering 
blade. 

“Hedwiga!” 

But she would not pause. She continued whirling 
around and warbling this odd song. Once or twice 
he tried to seize her as she brushed past him, but 
she gracefully evaded him. He finally leaped from 
his seat and flung his arms around her. 

Don t take care!—” she cried, panting, holding 
the sword in front of her. 

But he clung to her recklessly and, the sword hav¬ 
ing dropped from her hand, pressed his lips against 
her feverish mouth. 

She turned her head this way and that to escape 
his kisses, gurgling laughter in her throat, but was 
overpowered by his impetuosity, gradually yielding 
listlessly turning her face to his, her parted burning 
lips seeking his . . . 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


57 


Entwined they sat, the fire of their beings leaping 
into a common flame. Soon tears overflowed her 
eyes—she did not know why she was crying but in 
her heart was dread mingled with inexpressible joy— 
and presently his tears streamed down his pale 
cheeks. 

A strand of her hair loosened and touched his face. 
He begged for this lock of hair. He swore he would 
carry it to his dying day—“Yes, to my dying day,” 
he repeated again and again. 

A new light appeared in her eyes, and suddenly 
freeing herself she cut the golden lock with the 
fallen blade. 

He took it from her and kissed it tenderly and 
murmured reverently, “Until the last beat of my 
heart—.” 


VI. 

He left her that day with a feeling that this was all 
a dream, a bewitching dream. When he returned 
home he flung his arms around his sister and laughed 
and cried and uttered a babble of foolish words. 
He muttered rhythmic verses that sprang to his lips. 
At last he understood love. He had made the great 
discovery. 

His sister shared his ecstasy without knowing the 
cause. She knew Albert was sentimental. She had 
often seen him act madly when reciting his songs 
to her. This was her secret. That her brother 
had other secrets was unknown to her. 

Having exhausted the exuberance of his feelings 


58 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


upon his sister he rushed out of the house in quest 
of Christian Lutz. He felt that with Christian he could 
talk more freely. 

He did not tell Christian at once of Hedwiga 
but talked of love and death. He was just raving 
as Christian had often heard him rave about flowers 
and the Rhine. He recited a ballad he had composed 
about an imaginary maiden with golden locks and 
lips as red as rubies and a face as blessedly sweet 
as the lily and the roses. He knew Hedwiga’s hair 
was red, and only golden when the sun rested upon 
it, but he would not think of red hair—it was always 
golden. Besides, it did not sound so well — u Ihr 
rotes Haar” —No, it would not do; it would not ring 
as well as “Ihr goldenes Haar”. Besides, the only 
color that was really beautiful was golden; and 
the ever docile, acquiescing Christian concurred 
in this. A short time before, when Albert discussed 
a Spanish Donna, who was to figure in his great 
tragedy, and had gone into raptures about the 
lustre of bluish-black hair, Christian had just as 
readily, and whole-heartedly, admitted that raven 
hair was the most beautiful in the world. 

While Albert did not at first mention the name 
of his beloved, he talked so much of golden hair, of 
a small mouth with red curving lips, of a slender 
figure and clinging garments, of features more nobly 
chiseled than those of Niobe’s daughters, of a cer¬ 
tain hut on the bank of the Rhine—the quaintest 
hut in the world—of innocent children who must 
suffer for their father’s sins, and of a thousand other 
things that Christian could not help but recognize 
the identity of the goddess his friend was worship- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


59 


ping; and when finally, in a moment of great sec¬ 
recy, Albert whispered her lovely name—the loveliest 
name in creation and the most melodious—Christian 
feigned such great surprise that Albert felt flat¬ 
tered at the word picture he had given of her. 

Mrs. Zorn had been watching the progress of her 
son’s infatuation with anxious, yet amused, vigilance. 
She had always regarded romanticism as mere froth, 
easily dissipated by the strong currents of reason. When 
her husband told her again and again of the repeated ru¬ 
mors that had reached him she only smiled. What 
was the calf-love of a youth of sixteen? Besides, 
though she had drifted from the creed of her fore¬ 
fathers, the centuries of segregation, the self-dis¬ 
cipline, the enforced chastity of her people had not 
only subdued but almost eradicated the romantic 
instinct from her heart. The Ghetto had eaten 
itself into the very flesh of the Jewish woman of 
those days and seared her passions. Hemmed in 
as if a cordon had been thrown around her, all self- 
expression denied, her intense romantic love, like a 
rushing current dammed on one side, turned into 
another course and spent itself on filial devotion, 
conjugal affection, domestic tenderness. Persecution, 
like the fire that purifies gold and also brings forth 
dross, often ennobles the soul even while it degrades 
the body. 

Towards the end of that winter, however, Mrs. 
Zorn began to realize that something had to be done 
to end her son’s foolish infatuation. Albert was 
neglecting his studies more than ever and had be¬ 
come more subject to nervous headaches, walked 
too much, brooded too much, and took to reading 


60 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


poetry more assiduously. She began to fear her 
dream of making a banker of him might not be 
realized. Her husband had suggested that he be 
apprenticed to a banker in Frankfort, a friend of his. 

The next day she broached the subject rather 
abruptly. She meant to impress upon Albert the 
folly of his ways. 

“Albert, I have something of the gravest import¬ 
ance to say to you.” 

She paused. She wished to prepare him for the 
solemn occasion. There was no one in the house. 
She had purposely timed the interview so that she 
could speak to him alone. 

“What is it, mother?” 

“I hate to speak of it, but I wonder if you ap¬ 
preciate at what sacrifice your father has kept you 
at school—”. Whenever she wished to impress him 
she always spoke of his father, never of herself. 
“He has denied you nothing—has given you a good 
home, good clothes—while he denied himself almost 
everything.” 

She turned her eyes away. Albert drooped his 
head, tears appearing in his eyes. Her evident sor¬ 
row pained him. 

“Fll be glad to quit school and go to work,” he 
said promptly. ‘I don’t want to be a burden to you.” 

“No, you don’t understand me, Albert. No good 
parents ever find their children burdensome. These 
burdens are pleasures—. I wouldn’t speak of this if 
you— ; if you—” 

She faltered. She could not find fitting words to 
clothe her present thoughts. She wished to repri- 
mand him without hurting his feelings. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


61 


He threw his arms around his mother’s neck, hot 
tears streaming down his cheeks. 

‘Til go to work, mother dear—I’ll learn a trade— 
I'll do anything to lighten your burdens." He kissed 
her hysterically. 

“It’s not that. We don’t mind that in the least. 
The war is over and father will resume business. 
But we have decided to apprentice you to a banker 
in Frankfort. Fie is a good friend of father’s and 
will give you every opportunity of learning the 
business." 

She paused, slyly watching the expression on his 
face. She feared his temper—all the Zorns had 
such violent tempers! , 

"I should love to go to Frankfort," he cried joy¬ 
fully. 

The mother heaved a sigh of relief. 


VII. 

The prospect of the journey to Frankfort filled 
Albert with boyish glee. He was not thinking of his 
career—he did not clearly think of anything—he was 
happy because of the prospective change in his life. 
He had often heard his father tell of his visits to that 
beautiful city—the “Weltstadt”, his father had called 
it—the city where kings were once crowned and 
where his king, the great Goethe, was born—of the 
wonderful Fair, of the Roemer, of the Zeil. Albert 
had never seen a large city and was restive with 
anticipation. 

He was in high spirits. His mother had never 


/ 


62 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

seen him so animated, so boyishly happy. He romped 
and danced and sang like a joyous child. His ex¬ 
citement was so great that he could neither read nor 
write nor talk coherently. He paced up and down the 
house, rambled through the streets, restless with 
eagerness. 

In the meanwhile the winter was drawing to a 
close. Hedwiga, alone in that overheated hovel, sat 
knitting and brooding and thinking of Albert. He 
was the first ray of sunshine in her desolate life. He 
had often spoken to her of things she did not un¬ 
derstand but that made him even more alluring. Only 
at rare moments she caught flashes, like that of meeting 
clouds, and then darkness again. She had heard her 
aunt prattle about love which had always been meaning¬ 
less to her. But Albert’s sweet amorous words she un¬ 
derstood. When she looked at his half-closed eyes, at 
his dishevelled hair, at his sensitive lips, she became 
more restless—she often quivered—and craved his touch, 
and yet when his hands came in contact with her arms 
she trembled with shrinking fear—shrinking and yet 
yielding. After he had kissed her that afternoon, in the 
warm dusk of the hut, her fear was gone. She longed 
for his arrival, to be seized in his arms, to have his 
lips against hers. Even in his absence her lips quiv¬ 
ered as she thought of him and her eyes closed. He 
had a peculiar way of placing the tips of his sensi¬ 
tive fingers upon her shoulders, barely touching 
them, as if he were fingering the strings of a violin, 
and gazing into her face pensively, almost mys¬ 
teriously, and then letting his fingers glide over her 
thinly covered arms—sending a delicious shiver 
through her whole being—and slowly, creepingly, let- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


63 


ting them slide until they reached her wrists, then 
her hands, then her moist fingers, which almost in¬ 
voluntarily, helplessly became entwined with his, 
her eyes staring blindly, upward, at his face. No one 
could whisper such sweet little secrets in her mem¬ 
ory. The tears that often sprang to her eyes were 
never bitter; she felt happier when they came. 

Her aunt had of late been alarmed about her. 
She seemed to have grown thinner, with a peculiar 
flush in her cheeks. When Aunt Graettel at first 
made some veiled reference to her health, she laughed 
merrily and said she had never felt as well as now. 
One day Aunt Graettel overheard a stifled cough and 
told her niece that it might be best to have that Zorn 
boy stop his visits and she forthwith prepared a con¬ 
coction of herbs. Hedwiga shoved the tonic away 
with a fierceness the Witch had never suspected in 
her and said if Albert stopped coming she would 
throw herself into the river. 

But Albert’s joy at the approach of his journey 
was so great that he failed to notice the peculiar 
lustre in the girl’s eyes. He was bubbling over with 
delight. Did she not think it was wonderful? He 
was going to the Weltstadt, where there were the¬ 
atres and picture galleries and a great library and 
cafes and grand boulevards and—and he stopped for 
want of words. Did she not think it was wonderful? 

“And there are so many pretty girls in Frankfort?” 
she returned, with a sad smile and a strange glitter 
in her eyes. 

No, he swore he was not thinking of girls. Be¬ 
sides, no one was as pretty as his Lorelei, his Hed¬ 
wiga. 


64 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“You are not crying?" 

He shrank back half a step and looked puzzled. 

No, she was not crying. She wiped her tears 
away and was smiling. And presently he was read¬ 
ing a poem he had written the other night. He re¬ 
cited the verses—they were meant for her . . . 

No, no, she did not wish to cry, but her tears 
flowed against her will. He stowed the verses away 
and was consoling her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful 
when he came back after he had seen the world! 
His arms were stealing around her, her lips yielded 
so willingly, her tears flowed so freely! Tears beget 
tears, and soon his emotions stirred. He did not 
know why, but his tears flowed, too, mingling with 
hers and, with heart beating against heart, the fires 
of youth blazed in one conflagration —Dann schlagen 
zusatnmen die Flawmen! 

She was soon sobbing as if her heart would break. 

“Why do you cry?" he asked. 

She did not know why she was sobbing. There 
was really no occasion for grief. Was he not going 
to Frankfort to see the world—the great, wonderful 
world ? 

“Just think, liebste! No more dry text books, no 
more mathematics, no more stupid lessons in ac¬ 
counting, no more school! Just think of freedom all 
day and all night, and I shall be able to read and 
read and read and walk and walk through the boule¬ 
vards and write—Oh, Hedwiga!” He pressed her to 
his breast with frantic ecstasy. “I’ll write wonder¬ 
ful tragedies and songs and I will—” 

Words failed to express all his hopes and plans 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


65 


and desires. He was dizzy from the flood of thoughts 
that rushed upon him. 

She was sobbing no longer. Her hands limply in 
her lap, her tear-stained face composed, her shoul¬ 
ders relaxed and stooped forward, she stared blank¬ 
ly in front of her, looking without seeing, her great 
eyes wide open and full of heart-rending sadness. 

‘‘Will you write to me?" 

“Will I write to you? As often as the post will 
carry my letters. I'll tell you all about the wonder¬ 
ful things in Frankfort. By the way, father said the 
streets in Frankfort are lighted at night—light 
enough to read—rows of great lanterns in the 
streets! Wouldn’t you like to see Frankfort?” 

A sob was her only reply. 

“But you will come to Frankfort. I’ll be in the 
banking business there, and I will send for you, 
sweetheart mine.” 


VIII. 

Soon the winter was gone. Men and women 
came to the sun’s aid with hatchet and pick-axe, 
hacking and chopping and chipping the frozen mass, 
glittering diamonds flying in the air and catching 
the genial rays of the early spring sun. There was 
joy in every heart and even greater joy in Albert’s 
breast. As soon as all the ice was gone and the 
road dried his father was to take him to Frankfort. 
His heart thrilled at the sound of the running waters, 
washing away the last traces of the hoary winter. 
He helped clear away the ice in the shadowy part 


66 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


of the yard which the sunbeams could not reach. 
He desired to hasten the arrival of spring, the day 
on which he could start on the great journey. 

On the evening before his departure he and Chris¬ 
tian took their last stroll. It was early in the even¬ 
ing, a young moon in the sky, the scents of spring 
in the air, from afar the rumbling sound of the awaken¬ 
ing Rhine, and the gurgling of running waters. Two 
shadows, so clearly outlined on the ground, preceded 
them like bodyguards; one was taller than the other. 
The streets were dark save for the moonlight and the 
occasional glimmer from a window. 

Albert’s voice, like the running waters, never 
ceased. He was talking of Frankfort, of his journey, 
of his future. While he knew he was to be appren¬ 
ticed to a banker, the duties of such apprenticeship 
were not clear in his mind. He made the duties fit 
his dreams. 

They had now reached the river, which had spread, 
as it always did at this time of the year, and had risen 
higher, and was flowing with increased speed. There 
was a glow like a milky-way along the midstream 
where the moonbeams rested lightly upon the rippling 
waters. 

Albert halted his speech and his step. The river 
claimed his attention. He was not far from the 
cloister where the stream chattered noisily among 
the rocks and purred like a cat further down where 
there was a very narrow, low waterfall, descending 
like a huge corkscrew. For the moment Albert for¬ 
got everything, even Frankfort. The vast shadow 
of the Franciscan monastery, the moonlight above 
it, the rushing river, the earth-and-water scent in 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


67 


the air—they all overwhelmed him. It all found ex¬ 
pression in a contraction of his eyelids and in an 
exultant cry of “Ah! Christian!” 

His husky cry echoed in Christian’s heart. Albert 
was going far, far away—Frankfort seemed to Chris¬ 
tian at an endless distance and the memories of their 
close friendship crowded in upon him. His associa¬ 
tion with Albert had made the boyish years so won¬ 
derful. Hardly a day but he had walked and talked 
with Albert, and listened to his strange chatter; 
and when they were alone Albert was full of mirth 
and pranks and laughter. Albert had such a pecu¬ 
liar way of making fun of people. And every book 
he read he discussed with Christian, though at times 
Christian could scarcely follow his comrade. 

“Ah, Albert!” he echoed and rested his hand upon 
his friend’s arm. 

There were tears in Christian’s eyes. 

They remained standing silently for a moment, 
silhouetted in the moonlight against the vast shadow 
of the cloister. Then with a simultaneous impulse 
they were clasped in each other’s arms. 

“Will you remember me when you become a 
great man ?” 

“Ah! Christian! Can I ever forget you!” 

“Albert!” 

“Christian!” 

IX. 

At last the eventful morning arrived. Albert had 
not slept a wink the night before. Too many tu¬ 
multuous thoughts had kept him awake. He had 


68 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


called on Hedwiga the day before and her tears 
filled him with anguish. So he spent wakeful hours 
in composing a poem on the pain of parting and felt 
relieved. 

Today everything was forgotten. For in front of 
the house stood a vehicle, bedded with hay, and two 
horses with fodder-bags over their heads, and inside 
the house his mother was packing his father’s large 
folding leather valise, and his sister and his little 
brothers, were watching with inquisitive, curious 
eyes. Albert was too restive to watch the packing. 
From time to time he stepped to the window and 
stole a peep at the horses outside, a strange joy in 
his heart, and walked back with his hands in the 
pockets of his new coat. 

“Mama is crying,” piped up his little brother who 
stood close to his mother and followed her every 
move and insisted upon helping her, carrying a shirt 
from a chair nearby. Albert turned his head and 
glanced at his mother; she was brushing something 
from her cheek. His father w r as in the shop, making 
a few entries in his ledger and giving another look 
at his balance. 

Soon Uncle Salomon arrived, and Aunt Braunelle 
and Aunt Hanna and Father Schumacher, with his 
long pipe in one hand and his silver-headed cane 
in the other.. 

“I hope you’ll become another Rothschild,” Schu¬ 
macher said as he clasped the youth’s hand, an ir¬ 
repressible smile on his fine face. 

Mrs. Zorn overheard this and became more intent 
on forcing some handkerchiefs into the corner of 
the traveling bag; there was a touch of obstinacy 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


69 


around her mouth as she smoothed the bulging 
packet of linen. 

The hour had come. Albert was seated in the 
hooded coach by the side of his father, the coach¬ 
man on the box, a long whip in his hand. Mrs. Zorn 
rushed up to embrace her son once more. His sister 
reminded him to write to her all about the Roemer 
and the Zeil, and his little brother called to his father 
to remind him of the whistle “with three holes 1 * 
he had promised. David Zorn murmured something, 
the coachman snapped his whip, and the coach 
started off with a rattle and clatter over the cob¬ 
blestones. 

Then everything moved before Albert’s eyes. 
Schmallgasse, the Marktplatz, the big bronze statue 
of Jan Wilhelm, the Great Elector, the Franciscan 
cloister, the domes of the churches, the Hofgarten— 
like a flowing river, everything seemed to move be¬ 
fore him and away from him . . . 

The vehicle lurched and they turned into the main 
road. Albert stuck out his head to catch a last glimpse 
of the disappearing town. The road ran along ele¬ 
vated ground and he saw in the distance only a 
mass of crowded red roofs and a few rising towers 
against the sunny sky. There was nothing clear in 
his mind; nothing but confusion. For he was al¬ 
ready beginning to feel lonesome, his life-associa¬ 
tions falling away like crumbling walls. His father 
was silent, absent-mindedly stroking his blond beard 
and clearing his throat from time to time. 

The Rhine Road was finally struck. It followed 
the bank of the river and was only a short distance 
from the shore. The horses snorted and quickened 


70 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


their steps unbidden by the driver, the dull thump- 
thump of their hoofs on the sandy ground was music 
to Albert's ears. Wafts of fresh air—the cool, moist 
air of spring—came from the winding river; a bird 
was twittering in the branches of a nearby willow; 
a calf was lowing afar off unseen; a tethered colt 
galloped in a circle; expanses of green and brown 
flew before his eyes; and the sky was pale blue 
with endless bars of gray scarcely discernible and 
blended with the more colorful texture around them. 
Now and then glimpses of the Rhine came into view 
through the clumps of vines, and Albert was dimly 
conscious of links between himself and Gunsdorf. 
The farther away he traveled from his native place 
the more endearing it became and the less alluring 
the city of his destination. 

Presently his erstwhile enthusiasm for Frankfort 
was gone. He did not even think of it. He thought 
of nothing. He only felt a peculiar sensation in his 
heart, a sensation akin to pain, a feeling of loneliness 
possessed him. Unconsciously he moved closer to 
his father, who was now dozing. He felt dreadfully 
alone, and soon well-defined memories of Gunsdorf 
began to make inroads into his mind. His sister, his 
mother, Christian, Hedwiga. His mind was now 
centered upon Hedwiga. He let his head rest against 
the truss of hay back of him. His eyes closed. 
There was a strange longing in his heart. He 
stretched his hand and imagined he was touching 
the back of her neck, feeling her shudder as his 
fingers played with the soft down close to her ears. 
His lips moved as if he were tasting a savory dish. 
He sensed the sweet fragrance of her lips. . . 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


71 


He turned quickly to the right. A girl’s voice was 
calling “Goodbye.” For a bare second he was de¬ 
luded into believing it was Hedwiga’s voice. But 
when he craned his neck and peeped outside he be¬ 
held a farmhouse, a fence, an open wicker gate, a 
bare-footed girl with a thin skirt fluttering in the 
air, a few strands of flaxen hair flying; a hand 
shading smiling eyes. By her side was a little boy 
waving his hand. . . 

He leaned back and watched the stretches of field 
with a keener zest and listened langorously to the 
steady trot-trot of the horses, to the jingle of the 
harness. Everything was moving and there was a 
low hum in his ears and he felt the warmth of the 
covers around him and a strange vagueness before 
him . . . 



i 

/ 





THE JUDENGASSE. 


I. 


“W 


HO is there ?” 

Albert rubbed his eyes. The voice sounded 
as if it were coming through a tunnel, muf¬ 
fled yet rumbling. There were other noises in his 
ears, stamping and pounding and shuffling of feet. 
And there was darkness around him, the darkness 
of black night. 

“A traveler,” called another voice. 

This voice was familiar to him. He remembered 
the voice of Bandy-legged Schultz—the name by 
which the coachman was best known in Gunsdorf 
—and that brought to his mind the memory of his 
departure from his native town, the long tedious 
journey, the stops at various taverns. He felt weary 
and every muscle ached. He wished he were at 
the end of the journey. And what dreams he had 
had since he left Schmallgasse! 

“Verdamnite Juden! You are too late. The gates 
are closed.” 

A shudder ran through the lad’s frame. He was 
now sure he was dreaming and buried his face into 
the cushion in the corner of the coach. 

“Here, Schultz!” 

It was his father who was speaking. He saw 

73 


74 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


through half-closed eyes his father handing the coach¬ 
man a silver coin. The driver jumped off the box 
and approached a high wall in front of him. Albert 
could not make out what the barrier was except that 
it was high and it cast a great black shadow, re¬ 
vealing in the foreground a little house, and beyond 
it a gleam of the moon, half hidden, as if balancing 
itself on the high wall. 

Schultz knocked on the pane of a tiny window. 
He used the silver coin as a knocker. Then silence 
—ominous silence. Albert felt that his father was 
holding his breath and he, too, caught his breath 
and sensed the mystery around him. 

“The lazy louts are asleep,” the coachman mur¬ 
mured. 

David Zorn passed his hand over his head and 
emitted a grim grunt. 

The coachman knocked again with the silver coin. 

“Open the door—a traveler wants admittance!” he 
bellowed angrily. 

There was a stirring inside the little house and a 
thud as of one rolling off a bench.; 

“The devil take the Jews! Tausend Donner Sak- 
rament! They don't give a fellow a moment’s rest 
even on Easter Eve!” 

A gruff voice was heard within, a clatter of a bolt— 
of a heavy iron hasp—the clanking of chains—the 
grating of a key in a lock, the creaking of hinges, 
two tall gates swinging open slowly, and Albert beheld 
a bit of sky above the horses’ heads. The sky appeared 
narrow and high, as if seen from a deep trench. 

A short, heavy-set man, with a mustache the color 
of dry sand and the stiffness of bristle, appeared at 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


75 


the opening between the swinging gates. He held 
a lantern in his hand, the yellow glare of the tallow 
candle inside fell grotesquely over his patched jer¬ 
kin and saffron-colored hose. 

Schultz put the silver coin into the hand of the 
man with the lantern. 

The man put the money into his pocket and 
mumbled, “Don’t you know any better than to 
come so long after the gates closed!” 

He was stretching his arms and yawning. His 
jaws opened and closed sleepily as he spoke. 

“We are coming a long way,” the driver ex¬ 
plained. Couldn’t figure on the exact hour.” 

“How many Jews have you?” 

“Just one.” 

The guard walked up to the wagon, raised his 
lantern, and strained his eyes. 

“Huh! What do you call this, a suckling?” point¬ 
ing at Albert, who stared around him in bewilder¬ 
ment. 

“He is the gentleman’s son,” explained the coach¬ 
man. 

“You didn’t bring his cradle along—Huh! When 
a Jew reaches the age of twelve he is just as much 
of one for poll tax as he will be at seventy-five. 
We call it two Jews—huh! One Jew, he says! You 
can’t fool me!” 

“How much is it?” Zorn opened his purse, the 
guard holding the lantern to help him see the contents. 

“One Jew one Thaler, two Jews two Thalers — 
simple arithmetic,” snickered the guard. 

Zorn paid the price in silence. 

“How about a few Pfennige for Trinkgeld —what 


76 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


do you say? I could have kept you waiting here all 
night. And tomorrow is Easter.” 

Zorn handed him a few more coins and cleared 
his throat as if something was choking him. 

Schultz led the horses by the bridles a few steps. 
There was another guardhouse inside the gates. 

“Dovidle, stick your nose out—a couple of Jews 
for Easter,” the guard called in a piping, mimicking, 
sneering voice, and pounded on the casement. 

A door opened and out came a little man. 

The little man greeted Zorn kindly, extending his 
hand. “You must have come a great distance or 
you would have known better than to come so late.” 

“Since when have they re-established the Ghetto?” 
asked Zorn tremblingly. 

“As soon as they chased the French out,” replied 
Dovidle in a saddened, low voice. “Yes, they have 
hemmed us in again;” the little man sighed. “They 
are at their old tricks again, fleecing and torturing our 
poor people. Oh, God, will there ever be an end?” 

Albert trembled in every limb, a piercing pain 
shot through his head. He had read of the miserable 
Ghettoes, which were abolished as soon as Napoleon’s 
troops occupied the Rhenish provinces, but he had never 
thought of himself as belonging to a segregated people. 
He had long forgotten the taunts of Long Kunz and 
Shorty Fritz. In his native city he had never thought, 
and was never reminded, of his ancestry. His parents’ 
indifference to creed had made him almost forget it 
himself. 

The driver soon mounted the box, clacked his 
tongue, and moved on. 

They proceeded slowly through a long, narrow street 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


77 


—it seemed to Albert interminably long and exceedingly 
narrow—the buildings on either side high and close to¬ 
gether. It was dark—depressingly dark*—with an oc¬ 
casional candle light peeping through a window. Not 
infrequently there was the sound of footsteps which 
was quickly drowned by the heavier tread of the horses. 
A door opened now and then—dabs of yellow against 
a black curtain—a slam, and silence again . . . 


II 

Although warned not to wander alone through 
the streets outside the Judengasse, Albert’s curiosity 
got the better of him. No sooner was his father 
gone to see the banker, to whom Albert was to 
be apprenticed, than the boy left the tavern. He 
followed the long stream of people toward the gate 
at the end of the Judengasse. There were three 

gates in the enclosure, but this gate led to the Woll- 
graben, beyond which was the Fair. 

lie rambled aimlessly staring around him. He was 
proceeding along the banks of the Main, which was 
thronged with a thousand noisy traders, small ves¬ 
sels of antiquated design slowly moving to the ac¬ 
companiment of the quaint cries of the steersmen. 

The tumult was deafening. Porters with high loads 

on their heads crying at the jostling crowd to 

make way; trundling bales, chests, caskets; yells of 
warning for the passersby to stand back; quarreling, 
half-naked boatmen; scolding red-coated officials, 
leaping from vessel to vessel on their tours of in¬ 
spection; rattling of chains, plunging of anchors . . . 


78 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Presently he stood before the Roemer, the old Senate 
house, from which gaudy streamers were flying, its 
high gables bedecked with shields and banners; all 
around laughing, guffawing, merry-making. For 
today Frankfort was celebrating its independence 
once more, its independence from the enemy. 

Carried along with the jubilant throng he soon 
paused at the sight of a curious procession. Mounte¬ 
banks blowing trumpets, jugglers performing deft 
tricks, fencing masters displaying their agility in 
mock duels, a band marching and drumming and 
fifing, followed by girls clad in fantastic colors— 
yellow and black and green astride long sticks in 
the fashion of children playing horse, wiggling their 
high hips and heavy legs in the manner of Spanish 
dancers. Then came a column of bareheaded, bare¬ 
footed chanting monks, wax tapers in the hands of 
some, while others carried effigies and tall banners 
on which were painted bearded apostles and smooth 
shaven saints, and great silver crucifixes against a 
background of jet black drapery ... 

Suddenly there was a hush. The chanting of the 
monks ceased; the shrill voices of the dancing girls 
died in the distance; the noises of the merry-makers 
halted. Not a sound—nothing but the soft swinging 
of censers. Hark! a silver bell tinkled. Instantly 
all were on their knees with bowed heads. 

Fear possessed Albert. Though accustomed to 
Catholic ceremonies from childhood he would not 
kneel. And without looking to the right or left he 
hurried back as fast as his legs could carry him to 
the high walls of the Judengasse. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


79 


III. 

In youth experiences produce impressions, at a 
maturer age they generate thought. Albert’s mind 
had the peculiarity of both, youth and maturity. 
Impressions and thoughts came to him almost si¬ 
multaneously. 

The humiliation of his present surroundings made 
him shrink with a sensitiveness he could not define. 
He had thought the Ghetto belonged to the dark 
ages. He did not yet realize that there was but 
a step between the Dark Ages and any Age. The 
bitterness of his soul crowded out every other 
thought, every other feeling. The jubilee he had wit¬ 
nessed was to him the rejoicing of the sporting 
Philistines around the chained Samson. 

On his return to the tavern he threw himself upon 
his bed, his hands clasped under his head, his face 
toward the ceiling, tortured by a thousand conflict¬ 
ing thoughts. The back of his head was burning, 
and there was a pain in his eyes, the harbinger of one 
of his nervous headaches. 

He tossed and turned. He felt as if the ceiling 
were coming down on him, as if the walls were 
pressing together, the very air seemed suffocat¬ 
ing. Incoherently the morning scenes flitted through 
his mind—white robed priests—white—the symbol 
of truth and purity—the crucifix moulded of silver 
against a black background—another symbol—the 
images of saints, their eyes turned heavenward—Ah, 
that was too much for the impulsive, poetic youth, 


80 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


who never had to search for the truth, to whom 
truth came flying. He was writhing with pain,, 
the mortifying pain of helplessness. No, he was not 
helpless, he was saying to himself. Socrates was 
not helpless; Spinoza was not helpless; Lessing was 
not helpless. Every one must carry his torch as 
well as his cross. Yes, he would make his torch 
flare so that it would dispel the darkness around 
him. A strange ambition seized him. He did not 
want to be a poet. He did not want to be a money 
changer. He wanted to be a warrior to help man¬ 
kind free itself from its own enslavement. Nor did 
he crave earthly pleasures. For the moment he was 
an old man satiated with the pleasures and pains of 
life. Then came over him the sweeping melancholy 
of blossoming youth. The heavens opened before 
him and he caught a glimpse of eternity. Yes, he 
might fight-live and fight for the truth. 

How strong the sun was shining in his eyes! 
Its rays were coming through a window opposite his 
bed. He turned his face to .the wall, away from the 
light. Patches of pink and yellow and purple 
floated before his eyes in the shape of lotus 
flowers, and around them large golden wheels re¬ 
volved, emitting diamond sparks, with the sound 
of a waterfall in his ears . . . No, it was not the 
sound of rushing water. It was a musical sound . 

He soon recognized the tune. It was Allegri’s 
Miserere . . . and the light of an oblique colurpn 
of sun dust was in his eyes . . He turned and 
noticed the strong sunlight falling upon the wooden 
image of the Christ—the wooden image that stood 
under those arches in the Franciscan cloister. It 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


81 


was the same figure, the same bleeding Christ with 
a broad gash between the ribs, the same smear of 
blood. The figure was nodding its head—it was 
beckoning to him—but he could not budge. The 
figure then began to move toward him, and the 
palms, instead of nailed to the cross, were un¬ 
fastened and turned heavenward, and the head, in¬ 
stead of drooping, was thrown back, with derisive 
laughter on the sorrowful face—Yes, the figure was 
laughing, a strange, mocking laugh that made him 
shudder, and the laughter blended weirdly with the 
dying notes of the Miserere— 

“Are you asleep, Albert?” 

His father’s voice seemed to come from a great 
distance. 

“No, I haven’t slept—I am just resting—” Albert 
mumbled and rose to a sitting posture. 

“Herr Rindskopf assured me there is a great op¬ 
portunity for you in his bank,” Zorn was saying 
cheerfully. “And he is a fine man to work for, 
Rindskopf is.” 

Albert listened to his father as if in a dream, as 
if only remotely interested in the subject. 


IV. 

The following day was Friday, the busiest in the 
Judengasse. Zorn had made all arrangements with 
Rindskopf, but owing to the Sabbath he was obliged 
to remain here until Sunday. And this was the 
Sabbath of Sabbaths. It was the Saturday before 
the Passover—Shabbos H’godol— the Great Sabbath. 


82 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Albert welcomed his father’s suggestion to accom¬ 
pany him to the synagogue that evening. Every¬ 
thing about him seemed so strange and quaint. 

It was beginning to grow dusk when father and 
son started for the house of worship. The air was 
cool and refreshing, and the sinking sun was behind 
the high walls of the quarter. All men, and some 
women, were on their way to the courtyard which 
enclosed the House of God. The erstwhile grima¬ 
cing faces, on which was written abject misery, 
were now serene, carefree, spiritual— 

“In der Dammerungstunde, plotzlich, 

Weicht der Zauber und der Hund 
Wird aufs neu ein menschlicji Wesen—” 

Some walked hurriedly, as if belated, others strolled 
in pairs, leisurely, exchanging a few words of week 
day interest, but peace, almost unearthly peace, 
everywhere. The long Judengasse was quiet, with 
an air of restful melancholy about it, the melancholy 
and rest of a plaintive song sung in a minor key. 
Not a horse stirred, not the creak of a wheel; the 
voice of traffic was hushed. Nothing but footsteps 
of those wending their way to prayers. Here and 
there one caught a glimpse of a table in a court¬ 
yard, its legs upward like a horse on its back, and 
other articles of household furniture, cleansed and 
scoured and left to dry and air until the morning 
before the holiday, when everything must be clean 
and free from every crumb of leavened bread. 

Albert had never seen such a large house of pray¬ 
er. It was hundreds of years old, and within its 
lofty walls many a tear had been shed—nay, rivulets 
had flowed from Israel’s eyes—and sometimes not 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


83 


unmixed with blood. For this synagogue had housed 
those who fled from massacres, from flames, from 
swords. Barricaded behind the tall doors, maidens 
sought shelter from ravishers, children from untimely 
death, old women from slaughter. Thrice this House 
of God had been defiled by Preachers of Brotherly 
Love; thrice the torch of fanaticism had scorched 
its portals. Like a man bent in sorrow, this edifice 
betrayed the scars of persecution. The Old Syna¬ 
gogue of Frankfort looked solemn, sad, awe-in¬ 
spiring. 

Albert felt the solemnity and the sadness of the 
old house of worship. It was vast and lofty. Many 
brass chandeliers with scores of wax candles were 
suspended from the high arched ceiling, snapping 
and flickering every time the great door swung 
open. Rows of high desks, made specially for re¬ 
pose of the prayer books, filled the front part, 
while the rear was devoid of all obstruction and 
reserved as standing room for the poor who held no 
pews. The nearer the row to the wall facing East 
the higher the rank of its occupants. For the Juden- 
gasse was never democratic. Its spirit was aristo¬ 
cratic. All had their ranks, and one could classify 
them according to the rows of the pews. In the 
very rear were the humblest—the water-carriers, 
the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the tailors—then came 
the small traders, and gradually the guilds rose high¬ 
er and higher until they reached the row against 
the Wall facing East, where the dignitaries sat, the 
learned and the rich. 

Zorn and his soil were the guests of the dignitary 


84 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


whose pew was next to that of the Rabbi, a zealot, 
the descendant of a long line of rabbis. 

Albert looked around with unconcealed bewilder¬ 
ment. For although he had scoffed at, and mimicked, 
the gestures of the zealots and mocked at their dog¬ 
ma and forms, he was now conscious of reverence. 
Even the Rabbi’s curly locks, dangling over his 
ears, his untrimmed beard, his long silk gabardine, 
his knickerbockers and white stockings, the mitre¬ 
like black fur cap on his head, his broad white 
linen collar—none of these provoked mockery in the 
youth. The figure before him conjured a Velasquez 
he had once seen in Prince Joachim’s gallery in his 
native town. He only saw in the visage before him 
the pure white skin shining through the scanty 
youthful beard, spirituality in the large pupils of his 
grayish blue eyes. While the prayers had not yet 
begun, the Rabbi, his face turned to the wall, was 
lost in devotion, swaying his body rapturously—sigh¬ 
ing and praying and snapping his fingers in divine 
forgetfulness. 

A resounding blow upon the altar was a signal for 
silence. All murmurs hushed. An irrepressible 
cough here and there accentuated the sudden still¬ 
ness. 

“Lecho Daiidi likras Kallo,” the cantor In his lyric 
tenor trolled the first verse of a symbolic hymn 
composed by Salomo Alkabiz many centuries ago., 
After the manner of the Song of Songs, the ^Sab- 
bath is compared to a Princess, with whom Israel 
is enamoured and whom he is wooing. 

The rabbi, his face still turned to the wall, breathed 
every syllable as if he were in a trance, rolled his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


85 


eyes heavenward in sublime ecstacy, spread his arms 
as if opening them for his beloved, a new light 
shining upon his countenance, glowing with the ar¬ 
dor of a lover, as he softly murmured, 

“Lecho daudi likras Kollo, 

Pnei Shabbos Nekablo.” 

Friday evening is the hour of betrothal of the 
Princess Sabbath to her lover Israel, but the Juden- 
gasse sighed even as it chanted this ditty. 

Now the whole assemblage swayed like a forest 
in a storm—one could hear the soughing of the trees 
—responding with renewed ecstasy— 
a Lecho daudi likras Kollo , 

Pnei Shabbos Nekablo 

and the sweet tenor picked up the refrain in the 
next quatrain and melted with song. 

Albert did not join in the services, though his 
father held the prayer book before him. His eyes 
wandered. The flickering cathedral candles in front 
of the singing cantor cast a strange glamor over his 
bearded face and over his blue-black and white- 
striped robe; the dazzling gold and silver threads in 
the brocade curtain over the ark shimmered in the 
scintillating light of the Ner-Tomid. 

Albert soon found himself in the midst of the great 
stream leaving the synagogue. The stream moved 
exceedingly slow. When one leaves the House of 
God one must not make God feel that he runs 
away from Him, just as one must hurry on the 
way to the synagogue in order to show anxiety to 
get to His presence. The ancient -worshippers of 
Jehovah knew every whim and caprice of their Lord. 
They knew His appetite for the fat of lamb and veal 


86 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


and His relish for oil and frankincense—the rising 
smoke of all offerings was perfume to His nostrils. 
So, eager to please their Maker, they sauntered 
through the Judengasse with deliberate ease—there 
was pronounced luxurious relaxation in their move¬ 
ments—in pairs, in threes, in small groups, pre¬ 
ceded by their children, moving shadows on the 
moon-lit ground. Albert walked along musing. 
There was mockery and reverence in his heart; the 
reverence and mockery were blended, as he caught 
snatches of conversation from the throng. 

V. 

For a brief period Albert was blind to all else 
save the romantic beauty of his environment. He 
did not even brood over the humiliation of being 
segregated. All Frankfort was then composed of 
segregated groups—hostile camps—towns within 
towns, fortresses within fortresses, every period of 
the distant past, clear back to the feudal days, in¬ 
delibly stamped upon the inhabitants. His imagina¬ 
tion was aglow with romance. Indeed the theme 
for a poem, a heroic poem—a poem to vie with the 
Odyssey—was born in his fantastic brain. In this 
epic he would tell the glorious story of Israel in 
the same manner as Virgil had told of Augustus and 
of the Romans. His hero was to be a descendant 
of Don Abarbanel, from the branch of David, and a 
fugitive from the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, he vis¬ 
ualised his hero—he was a young man with greenish 
blue eyes and light brown hair, with poetic aspira¬ 
tions, and the heroine— 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


87 


But with the beginning of his apprenticeship the 
subject lost all glamor for him. He found the 
banking business disappointing and the Judengasse dis¬ 
heartening. He had imagined a bank was—well, he 
did not clearly know what a bank was like except 
that money flowed from it like milk and honey in the 
promised land, and with money one could buy so 
many beautiful things. For aside from thought and 
feeling Albert was still childishly unpractical. 

Rindskopf’s bank was a sombre room with a 
dingy little chamber in the rear, in which stood a 
large iron box and was fastened with three locks. 

He had soon become dreadfully lonesome and 
homesick for Gunsdorf—the Gunsdorf he had been 
so glad to leave only a few weeks before. He longed 
for Schmallgasse, for the Marktplatz, for the Hof- 
garten, for Father Rhine, for Hedwiga. He had 
never known how much he loved his native town. 
How had he ever wished to depart from it, he asked 
himself again and again in his loneliness. He had al¬ 
ready seen the house where Goethe was born, had 
again visited the Roemer and the Zeil and Sachsen- 
hausen, and found nothing new any longer. 

All his thoughts again turned to Hedwiga. He 
had despatched two letters of glowing passion and 
tenderness but had received no answer. So he stayed 
up late at night, writing heart-rending verses about 
a maiden with golden hair, who chanted as she 
sewed a shroud for her lover . . . 

The banker had put Albert to copying letters and 
filling in draft blanks and the youth found the task 
irksome. At the end of the second week his work 


88 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


was done so mechanically and with such eloquent 
distaste that his employer, seated at his writing desk 
a short distance away shook his head and murmured, 
“Der Junge hat kein Talent zum Geschaeft.” 

No, the young man had no talent for business. 
Adolf Rindskopf would have sent him away but 
David Zorn was his friend and he must endure his 
friend’s son a little longer. Besides, Albert wrote 
a very neat hand, with a flourish which Adolf se¬ 
cretly envied. When he wrote to Berlin— die Kaiser - 
stadt —he was anxious to make an impression on his 
correspondent. Yes, Albert’s penmanship was beauti¬ 
ful. 

But one day while Albert was seated at the long 
table copying a letter and thinking of other things, 
the postman came in. Albert looked up eagerly. 
Although he had already given up hope of hearing 
from Hedwiga, the postman revived his anxiety. 
But no letter for him. So he watched Rindskopf 
from the corner of his eye. He loved to watch 
Rindskopf open his mail. Rindskopf approached this 
task as a gourmand attacks a palatable dish. His 
eyes dilated, his bulky stolid body stirred restlessly 
in his chair, his lips twitched, avidity in every ges¬ 
ture. Then he took the large ivory paper-cutter 
in one hand, and with the other tapped the edge 
of the envelope against his desk and, raising it on 
a level with his eyes, screwed one eye almost tight 
as he fixed the other at the upper end, which he 
held against the light, and ripped it open with the 
utmost care for fear of touching the contents. 

“Tausend Donner Sakr ament T Adolf suddenly 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


89 


exclaimed and jumped up from the chair, with the 
enclosure of the envelope in his hand. 

Albert poised his pen, an amused smile on his 
boyish countenance. 

Rindskopf’s face was flushed, his mustache 
twitched, his paw-like hands trembled. 

“ Ach , du lieber Gotti ” he called upon the Almighty 
to witness his distress, and rushed up to Albert. 

“You’ll bring ruination on me—what? Where is 
your head—what do you—” 

He was so enraged that coherent speech would not 
come. 

Albert’s face changed color. He paled a trifle 
and was terrified. 

“This is a fine piece of business,” Rindskopf soon 
regained his voice—“What did you do with that bill 
of exchange?” 

This strange demand puzzled poor Albert. He 
stared fretfully at his employer. 

“What did you do with that bill of exchange I 
gave you the other day to forward to Berlin?” Rinds¬ 
kopf repeated, panting. 

“—x—I enclosed it in the letter—as you told me—” 
Albert stammered. 

Adolf’s eyes were dancing over the letter in his 
hand. Presently he was reading its contents aloud. 
“‘My dear Herr Rindskpof: 

‘“In Frankfort, the birthplace of Goethe, love- 
songs may be called bills of exchange, but in our 
prosaic city of Berlin we mean precisely what we say. 
We have tried to cash the enclosed but without suc¬ 
cess ; perhaps you can do better with it in your 
home town—’ ” 


90 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Rindskopf had caught the facetious tone of the 
letter and burst out in enraged laughter. 

“Fine business I call this!” he cried as he con¬ 
tinued reading the ironic reply, accentuating every 
syllable, contempt in his voice: “'We are therefore 
returning your amorous ditty, much as we appre¬ 
ciate your romantic sentiments, and beg to send us 
instead a plain, matter-of-fact bill of exchange/ ” 

Adolf was beside himself. He called Albert a 
good-for-nothing, cursed the day he had let the 
boy enter the bank, slwore that his wife had warned 
him against taking Zorn’s son into his house.^ 

He then raised the returned enclosure to his eyes 
and began to read— 

The money-changer was shaking with scornful 
laughter as he read on. 

Albert was quivering, tears rushed to his eyes. It 
was not the mistake that vexed him but Rindskopf’s 
mocking voice. These verses were intended for the 
envelope addressed to Hedwiga! 

Albert leaped forward and snatched the verses from 
Adolf’s hand. 

“Where is my bill of exchange?” shouted Adolf. 

Albert was not interested in the bill of exchange. 
His heavenly lyrics had been defiled! Their recital 
by Rindskopf was a piercing dagger in his heart. 

“You are nothing but an ignorant boor!” Albert 
shouted back, striking a pose of sublime impudence. 
What is your miserable bill of exchange compared 
with my poem—huh! Your Thalers! You ought to 
feel honored that you, an ignoramus, have a poet in 
your employ!” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


91 


Rindskopf shrank back, stunned. Such insolence 
from his apprentice! 

Before Adolf recovered his wits Albert had put 
on his hat and with a look of unspeakable contempt 
strutted out of the place. 


VI. 

Albert’s conduct was a severe blow to his parents. 
Rindskopf had written to the elder Zorn and de¬ 
scribed the disgraceful scene to its minutest detail. 
“I could see from the very first day,” wrote Rinds¬ 
kopf, “that your son has no bent for business, but 
on your account I had endured him as long as I 
possibly could.” 

The father made a hurried trip to Frankfort and 
tried to reason with Albert. He told him of the 
deplorable state of his finances and that further 
schooling was out of the question; and there was 
nothing for him to do at home. 

The father had another friend in Frankfort, Veitel 
Scheps, who was a wholesale grocer and an importer 
of fruits from Italy. Veitel was willing to give the 
young man a chance to learn his trade. 

Veitel was a little man, nothing but skin and 
bones, with a grizzly little beard, the end of which 
he was in the habit of chewing wistfully. Veitel 
seemed always absent-minded. There was a strange 
light in his big brown eyes. He was nearly sixty, 
but there was the fire of youth in his eyes. He 
received his friend’s son kindly and assigned to him 
the easiest work in his warehouse. He also housed 


92 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


him in his own home, and his wife, being childless, 
bestowed on Albert maternal tenderness. 

For a short time everything went well. Albert 
liked Veitel and his place of business. The ware¬ 
house was sunless, filled with bales of dried fruits, 
casks of wine, boxes of oranges and lemons and 
dates, permeated with the pleasant odors of figs and 
raisins and the delicacies of the Italian soil. Al¬ 
bert’s task was to take down the numbers of the ship¬ 
ments and the quantities that came in and went out. 

He loved to lose himself in the rear of the large 
storehouse, where there were narrow passages 
stacked with boxes and sacks and crates of wafting 
fragrance. The scents were inspiring. He had just 
read Goethe’s “ Brief e aus Italien” and visualized 
the graphic descriptions of the great master. At 
tmies he would move listlessly through those darkened 
passages, conjuring visions of the land “wo die Citro- 
nen bluhen.” 

Meandering through these fruit-smelling passages 
he often imagined himself under the blue skies 
of Italy. A spear of sunshine stealing in through 
the crack of a dust-covered window pane enhanced 
the illusion. That was the glorious light of Italian 
skies shining upon the sun-baked lanes of Capri. 
It was not the creaking of the ungreased wheels of 
Franz’s wheelbarrow—Franz was the peasant lad 
trundling heavy-laden boxes—that he heard but the 
twittering of birds in the green foliage of Sorrento. 
A horse was neighing outside. Albert’s breast heaved 
with sensuous joy. For to his ears it was the bray¬ 
ing of a donkey clambering up the narrow cliff 
road to Salerno. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


93 


“Albert!—Albert!” someone was calling, but he 
only heard the distant echoes from his wonderland. 
Leaning against a column of casks he paused and 
wrote verses that had been running through his head 
for days— 

“Albert—Albert Zorn!” 

The voice became impatient, irritable, anger in 
the tone. It was the voice of Veitel. 

“Franz is waiting for the numbers!” he cried.. 

Albert tried hard to remember on which errand 
he had been sent. 

Presently the agitated Veitel was before him. The 
wagon was outside and had to be loaded for the 
boat sailing for Coblenz and Albert stood there, 
staring at him like an idiot! 

Veitel took a step back. The young man must 
have lost his wits. His wife had told him the boy 
had been acting queerly, always as if in dreamland. 

For a moment Veitel was baffled. Perhaps he 
ought to run back for help. One could not tell what 
a maniac might do! The wife of a friend of his had 
been stabbed by a maid servant under similar cir¬ 
cumstances, he recalled. She, too, had acted queerly 
—the maid servant had been melancholy—and sud¬ 
denly, while she was peeling potatoes, she stabbed 
her mistress with her paring knife! 

“Are you not feeling well, Albert?” Veitel’s tone 
was now soft, sympathetic, cautious. 

He was moving back step by step, coaxing the 
young maniac to follow him. As soon as he emerged 
into the open Veitel gained courage. 

“Where is the list?” he pleaded. 

Albert shuddered. He could not free his mind 


94 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

from the illusion. He was still under the blue skies 
of Italy. 

“Where are the numbers?” Veitel demanded. 

“The numbers—what numbers?” Albert's voice 
was somnolent. “Just a moment!” 

He had not finished writing the last two verses 
and was afraid they might escape his memory, so 
while Veitel scolded he put the sheet of paper against 
a box nearby and scribbled the end of his ballad. 
He then looked up with clearer vision in his eyes. 

“Didn’t you take the numbers down for the Cob¬ 
lenz shipment? Franz is waiting for them.” 

“O, yes, the numbers;” and he rushed back to 
execute the order, Veitel staring at large. 

“No, the boy has no talent for business,” Veitel 
confirmed Rindskopf’s opinion, and wrote a lengthy 
letter to his friend David Zorn. 

This time the father made no trip to Frankfort. 
Instead he sent Albert money for the homeward 
journey. 


VII 

He returned home downhearted. He felt the 
cheerlessness of his home-coming. The very excessive 
tenderness of his mother, the over-affectionate em¬ 
brace of his sister, accentuated his failure. He felt 
the kindliness accorded the afflicted, the solace given 
to people in trouble. And although there was de¬ 
fiance in his bearing he felt keenly the disappoint¬ 
ment on the faces of his family. 

Nobody spoke of his future. Even his father— 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


95 


always full of plans—only cleared his throat, passed 
his hand lightly over his fine beard, and murmured 
“We’ll see”, whenever his wife broached the subject. 

So Albert drifted. In his present state of mental 
confusion he postponed calling on Hedwiga from day 
to day. He stayed at home and read, walked the 
streets and mused, lay stretched on the river bank 
and pondered all sorts of things. He also spent 
much time writing, chiefly verses, which he clan¬ 
destinely sent to editors who would not have them. 

He wandered about the streets, along the river 
bank, like a liberated prisoner. No, he was not 
thinking of the Judengasse, of its tragedy, of its 
quaint traditions; he would not sing of the glory, 
and the tragedy, of Israel. He was emanci¬ 
pated, a true son of the Rhineland. He would sing 
of the shattered ruins on the banks of the Rhine 
peopled with golden legends, of beautiful Hedwiga, 
of fair Katherine, of pretty Gertrude. No, no, he 
was no descendant of Miram and David, he was no 
compatriot of Isaiah and Yehudah H’Levi, no fellow- 
sufferer of the dwellers of the Ghetto. The cradle 
of his forefathers had stood in Greece, her Gods 
were his Gods, the great unconquered world his 
world. And it was summer again. The sun was 
cooling its burning rays in the liquid silver of the 
gently flowing Rhine, a thousand echoes shouted 
greetings from the vine-clad shores, the mossy 
boulders called and beckoned to him to lie down 
and dream of things eternal! 

All his slumbering romantic sentiments reawakened 
and with them came his longing for Hedwiga, his 
Lorelei. 


96 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


On the morning he went to see her the sun was 
blazing in the skies and the road was dusty. His 
heart was pounding with joy as he left the narrow 
little streets of the town and struck out in the road 
that led to the Free House. No serious thought 
intruded upon his mind at present; he was carefree. 
The image of the slender girl with the golden locks 
was dancing before his eyes. He strode along jaun¬ 
tily, joyously, expectantly. The hut loomed up in 
the distance. He first caught sight of the large 
elm tree, and there was a fluttering in his breast. 

Hedwiga! He saw her clinging skirt, her great 
black eyes, her bare feet, her beautiful throat. 

What was this ? A cart at the door! The two lit¬ 
tle windows of the hut wide open, and likewise the 
door; people moving about inside—a hearse! It 
must be the Witch. There was a pang of sorrow in 
his heart, but then she was old, and the old must 
die. 

He entered the hut. Only three old women and 
a man; the women with hanging heads stood round 
a wooden box and the man held a board in his hands. 

Where was Hedwiga? 

The man waved the board in the direction of the 
box. 

The morning sun cast a strange pallor over the 
dead face in the coffin. Albert trembled from head 
to foot and a flood of tears rolled down his wan 
cheeks. 

The man looked at the youth without sadnesls. 
The three women, too, glanced at him puzzled. 

Yes, the Witch had died two weeks before and 
now her niece was dead. They did not know what 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


97 


the girl died of — how could anyone tell what a per¬ 
son died of! The soul left the body and all was 
ended. There was a grimacing smile on the face of 
the woman who answered Albert’s questions. May¬ 
be it was the evil spirits—who could tell? 

He bent over the coffin for some silent moments. 
He stared blankly at the white shroud, at the waxen 
face, at the closed eyes . . . 

Then the man and the three women carried the 
coffin to the cart outside, and the cart started and 
moved away slowly, the wheels creaking, crunching 
the clods of the dry mud . . 
















A NIGHTINGALE IN A CROW’S NEST. 


I. 


“Es kiisst sich so siisse der Busen der Zweiten 
Als kaum sich der Busen der Ersten gekiisst” 


Goethe. 


HAT youth, what poetic youth, could not 



say this with equal truth if he would, had 


* * he the candor of the great bard of Weimar? 
Albert Zorn had more than candor; the public was his 
priest to whom he confessed more than he sinned. 
He never concealed the fact that to him woman was an 
antidote to woman- And love was such a wonderful 
inspiration for melodious verses! At times he could 
not tell which he loved most, the melodious verses or 
the woman who inspired them. 

Had he already forgotten Hedwiga with that waxen 
face and white shroud? Indeed not; he sang of her 
in the most tragic refrains and dedicated to her mem¬ 
ory a dream picture— ein Traumbild —and when he 
read it over and over, again and again, his heart al¬ 
most broke and burning tears bedewed his flushed 
cheeks. But even as he wept for Hedwiga he yearned 


99 


100 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

for some other pretty maiden to take her place in his 
heart. 

He had changed considerably during this listless 
year. He had grown taller, his hair was longer and 
fell unevenly over his coat collar, and his sparkling eyes 
were even more narrowed, as if to hide from the 
people around him how much he could see; there 
was also something indefinable about the deep comers 
of his large mouth that seemed provoking. He car¬ 
ried a cane and brandished it dreamily as he strolled 
through the lime-tree lane in the Hof gar ten, where 
there were always pretty girls in gay colors “like 
bright tulips planted along the flowery paths” 

The year seemed interminably long. Without school 
attendance, without any definite hours allotted to study 
or work, without any occupation, he was fancy free. 
He read whatever books suited his taste and gave ex¬ 
pression to whatever ideas flitted through his brains. 
And after the ecstasy of composition would come de¬ 
spair, the despair that must come to the artist striving 
after perfection of expression, when he would regard 
his songs and dream-pictures as mere drivel. What 
would become of him! True, Christian was ever ready 
with his solace—the greatness of many had remained 
unrecognized for a time, he reminded Albert—but that 
did not console the young poet. Ah, he was a worth¬ 
less fellow—what would become of him! 

Then he would shut himself up in his room, without 
wishing to see any one. He would be weighed down 
by his grief, the grief of his conflicting emotions and 
thoughts. He would reveal himself to himself and hate 
himself. He had already passed his eighteenth year 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


101 


and nothing had happened. What would become of 
him? 

But what was there for him to do? His father’s 
business was worthless; he did not care for his grand¬ 
father’s profession, though he had entertained it for 
a while since Schiller, too, had been a physician; and 
jurisprudence—well, he had no taste for that. Besides, 
a university career meant a great expenditure of money 
and he knew it was beyond his parents’ means. 

At last the father wrote to his brother, Leopold, 
and asked for his advice. Leopold told him to send the 
young man to Hamburg. He would find a place for 
him. 


II. 

Albert arrived in Hamburg on a warm day late in 
June. He was dusty, hungry, tired. Travel by chaise 
to Hamburg was very fatiguing. And to add to his 
discomfiture when he reached his uncle’s town he found 
the shutters closed and the doors boarded, the family 
having departed for their summer home. Why had 
not his uncle given him specific instructions how to get 
to him? He was vexed and stormed at the coachman. 
A neighbor finally furnished his uncle’s business ad¬ 
dress. Everybody knew the location of Leopold Zorn’s 
bank. 

Albert’s irritation increased at finding Uncle Leopold 
away. 

“Was I not expected?” he demanded. 

The pompous man, whom he addressed, smiled— 


102 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


haughtily, Albert thought—and turned away from him 
as if he were a tailor’s apprentice delivering a gar¬ 
ment. 

'‘Aaron, Herr Zorn’s nephew is over there,” the 
pompous man called—“that boy with the valise at the 
door—” 

“That boy with the valise at the door!” Albert 
felt wroth enough to turn around and go back home 
with the same chaise. Huh! that boy with the valise 
at the door. 

Presently his anger turned to laughter. A short, 
broad, middle-aged man, with sunken cheeks which 
were rounded by a growth of a beard streaked with 
gray, approached him. He seemed to lurch forward, 
rubbed his right hand against his greenish coat, and 
extended the usual greetings to him. His was a short, 
fat little hand, moist and clinging. 

“Yes, my child,” he addressed Albert patronizingly, 
though not unrespectfully, smacking his lips after 
every few words as if feeling the taste of his utter¬ 
ance—“Yes, my child, your esteemed uncle has given 
me instructions to look after your wants. Ah, that 
uncle of yours,—a heart of gold!—yes, my child, 
pure gold, sifted gold—gold, as the Bible says, that 
comes from Ophir. God grant that we have a few 
more the likes of him; yes, my child, pure gold with¬ 
out a speck of dross. ‘Aaron/ says he to me—‘Aaron 
Hirsch/ says he, ‘my nephew will drop in one of these 
days during my absence and I want you to take good 
care of him and find him respectable lodgings.’ ‘Herr 
Banquier, says I to him, ‘you need not worry on that 
score, Aaron Hirsch will take good care of his bene¬ 
factor’s nephew.’ Indeed, my child, I have just the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


103 


place for you—yes, sir, just the place—the very best 
place—in fact. The widow Rodbertus on the Grosse 
Bleichenstrasse has a room overlooking a garden with 
two large windows. No back-hall bedroom for the 
nephew of the great banker, says I to myself/’ Aaron 
laughed unctuously. “And it is not far from here 
either. Just a step as we say in Hamburg. Let me 
have the valise—it’s too heavy for you. I can carry 
it with my little finger.” 

Aaron’s speech grew in fluency as they proceeded on 
the way to Widow Rodbertus, though “his little finger” 
had soon grown tired and he was forced to rest his 
valise on the sidewalk now and then. 

He plodded on, his speech uninterrupted in spite 
of the encumbrance. 

“You see, I am a trusted clerk in your esteemed 
uncle’s bank,” he said when they had reached Grosse 
Bleichenstrasse and, lowering his voice, he added, 
“but as a side line I sell lottery tickets. S—sh! Your 
esteemed uncle warned me not to sell any tickets to 
anyone in his employ or to any of the bank’s cus¬ 
tomers.” 

“There is honor among thieves—hey? Only one 

robbery at a time,” Albert struck in. 

Aaron suddenly let the valise drop to the pavement, 
and, with his hands at his sides, burst into convulsive 
laughter. 

“That’s a good one—I must tell it to your esteemed 
uncle.” Then reverting to a more serious tone he 
said cautiously, “I sold your father the very first lot¬ 
tery ticket he ever purchased—ask him if I tell you a 
lie. And he came within three numbers of the Grand 
Prize. Just think of it—within three numbers! If 


104 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the man drawing the lottery had just moved his hand 
a tiny bit further down—just a wee, wee bit— your 
father would have been the recipient of two hundred 
thousand marks! And do you think I’d have asked 
your father for a single pfennig for having been his 
good angel—no, no, not a pfennig , not a groschen, 
not even a thank-you! No, my child, not Aaron 
Hirsch! I wouldn’t have asked your good father for 
a pinch of snuff.” 

But they were soon inside, Aaron introducing the 
young man to Widow Rodbertus as the nephew of 
the “great banker” and Madame Rodbertus to Albert 
as the kindest soul that ever drew breath. 


III. 

When he found himself in his room free from 
Aaron’s chatter he grew sad again, the sadness of dis¬ 
appointment gripped him. Not a word of welcome 
from his uncle. And that fat pompous man in the 
bank—he had puffed and sputtered like a porpoise— 
that man called him a boy!—had not even introduced 
himself or said a friendly word to him! The thought 
burned in his brain; his heart was filled with bitter¬ 
ness. He was received like a poor relation—He! Al¬ 
bert Zorn, who was soon to make the world talk of him 
as they were now talking of Byron! Ah! that 
haughty man in the bank had looked at him as if he 
were an errand boy! He, Albert Zorn, with scores of 
lyrics in his valise and the first draft of a tragedy that 
would vie with Schiller’s “Wallenstein”, with “Childe 
Harold”! That red-faced, pompous man, proud of his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


105 


purse—a mere money-bag! Huh! “That boy with the 
valise at the door”! 

He paced up and down the room and finally paused 
before the window overlooking the garden. The garden 
of Aaron’s vision was a little courtyard with a pine 
tree in the center, encircled by meagre little shrubs. 
For a moment he stood gazing upon the lonely tree ab¬ 
sently. Aside from the few stunted shrubs around it 
there was not a shade of green in sight. He soon felt 
a kinship with the tree. It was symbolical—like the 
fir tree before him he stood alone on the barren heights 
of the north, wrapt in a white coverlet of ice and snow, 
and dreaming of a palm tree in distant sunny lands . . . 

His disappointment awakened in him crushing mel¬ 
ancholy. Lonely and in silent sorrow on the scorching 
rock precipice! Tears trickled down his cheeks, though 
he was not conscious of them. Never had he felt so 
lonesome, so forsaken, the ground under him so barren 
and cold; and never had his heart so yearned for the 
warmth of the sun . . . 

A door opened somewhere. It sounded loud in the 
quiet courtyard. The window before him was open 
and he leaned dreamily forward. He heard the voice of 
Frau Rodbertus on the threshhold, escorting someone to 
the door. Another voice reached his ears—a silvery voice, 
the voice of a young girl, with the music of feminine 
sweetness in it. Sudden joy leaped into his heart. He 
did not feel so lonesome now. He felt as if a tender 
hand was soothing his irritated nerves; the sweet mur¬ 
mur of a brooklet was in his ears. He leaned a trifle 
forward. A young girl, with a green parasol in her 
hand, was taking a step at a time backwards, and talk¬ 
ing to Frau Rodbertus. He found himself studying 


106 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the girl's face and figure, a strange tingling in his 
blood. A girl with soft brown eyes—that looked large 
and dark—black hair and a dainty yet vigorous little 
body. As she kept retreating he became conscious of 
the movement of her feet—there was something de¬ 
liciously sweet, almost rythmical, about her tripping 
movements, and about the swaying of her skirt. 

“Au revoir!” The girl was taking leave of Frau 
Rodbertus in the soft accent of the French, not in 
that harsh voice of the German when interspersing 
French words in their conversation. 

“Au revoir!” 

The portal closed, the door downstairs was slammed. 
A feeling of delicious cheer in Albert’s being. The 
ground under his feet was no more barren and cold; 
he no longer thought of his uncle’s neglect, of that 
pompous man in the bank. He was dreaming of sunny 
lands . . . He again paced up and down the room but 
with throbbing joy in his heart. 

He soon rushed to the little oak table at the win¬ 
dow and sat down, as if something was propelling him 
to quick action. Volatile thoughts played hide and 
seek with his brain. He leaned back, his sensitive 
lips parted slightly, as of a person in a fever, his 
half-closed eyes as if in stupor. “Sweet eyes—bles¬ 
sedly sweet brown eyes,” he murmured. The tips of 
his delicate fingers moved slowly as if he were cares¬ 
sing a smooth cheek, his heart was pulsuating in short, 
panting beats, and removing a sheet of paper from 
his breast pocket, as if in a dream, scribbled a line 
or two, murmured the words over and over, again 
and again, unearthly bliss stealing over his counten¬ 
ance . . . 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


107 


IV. 

Two days later his uncle returned from his sum¬ 
mer home. Aaron Hirsch led him to the banker's 
private office. Bowing and courtesying the unctious 
Hirsch explained to his master how punctiliously he 
had carried out his orders and what wonderful lodg¬ 
ings he had procured for his nephew. 

Leopold Zorn smiled benignly and was very soli¬ 
citous in his inquiries about Albert’s father, his mother, 
and every one of the children. 

The banker was of medium height but, seated, looked 
tall. He held his head erect, his high collar (cut low 
in front for the freedom of his longish smooth shaven 
chin) pressing against his closely cropped side-whis¬ 
kers, which were once brown but now somewhat faded, 
with streaks of gray. There was a pleasant twinkle 
in his eyes, but it was the twinkle of the quick-tem¬ 
pered which can change to flashing fury upon the 
least provocation. 

The uncle studied his nephew as he tried to draw 
him out in conversation, and felt disappointed. David 
had given him to understand that Albert was bright 
but he could detect no brightness in the young man. 
The boy was more like his father, a ne’er-do-well, 
passed through the banker’s mind; nothing of his 
mother. Furthermore, he was annoyed at the young 
man’s constant twirling of his walking stick. He felt 
that this conceited youth was not sufficiently impressed 
with his uncle’s importance. Callers at his private 
office did not sit with their legs crossed, twirling their 


108 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


canes. The banker’s annoyance was growing. He 
thought best to make the young man understand his 
place at the outset. 

“I shall be glad to find employment for you here,” 
he said with a show of impressiveness and a knot ap¬ 
pearing in his left eyebrow, “and if you show the 
proper spirit and industry you will have a chance to 
rise. But you must dismiss all nonsense from your 
mind (David had told him that Albert was fooling 
his time away on verses). You must give your undi¬ 
vided attention to business if you hope to make any¬ 
thing of yourself; and”-—he cleared his throat and 
turned his eyes aside—“you must show the proper re¬ 
spect for your elders.” 

Albert listened but was unable to concentrate on 
what his uncle was saying. Instead, his mind dwelt 
upon his uncle’s physiognomy. He liked the straight 
nose—rather broad at the bottom—and the well shaped 
mouth. He also liked his grayish hair parted on the 
side. The tone of his voice displeased him. There 
was a ring of haughtiness in it. 

The next moment, however, his feeling warmed to¬ 
ward his uncle. Leopold mistook his nephew’s preoc¬ 
cupied silence for submission and instantly regretted his 
harshness. Leopold was quick-tempered but keenly 
conscious of his failing. Kind hearted to a fault it 
hurt him to think he was unduly severe with his 
brother’s son. He softened instantly and endeavored 
to make amends. 

“I know you’ll like Hamburg. It is a city of great 
opportunities,” he said tenderly. 

Albert’s face saddened. He realized the opportuni- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


109 


ties his uncle had in mind had a different meaning 
from those in his own. 

“Don’t be so downhearted, Albert.” Uncle Leopold’s 
voice was now jovial, kindly, a pleasing smile in his 
eyes. He touched Albert’s knee as if to buoy him up. 
“Your work here won’t be hard. Are you short of 
money ?” 

He opened his wallet and handed him several bills. 

Leopold touched the silver bell on his secretary and 
Hirsch appeared. 

“Tell Herr Elfenbein to come in,” he ordered. 

A stout red-faced man, with fleshy eyelids, a long 
gold watch chain resting on his spherical abdomen, like 
a sleeping snake on a sunny rock, presently appeared at 
the door. It was the pompous man Albert saw on the 
day of his arrival. 

“Martin, this is my nephew—David’s son—this is 
Herr Elfenbein, Albert—” 

Martin extended a lax hand. 

“Albert has had a good education and writes a fine 
hand,” Uncle Leopold added, “and I’ll place him in 
your care. But don’t spare the rod.” The banker’s 
face was writhing in smiles as he said this and then 
laughed jovially. “I think Albert needs a little disci¬ 
pline —hey? What do you say, Albert?” 

“Don’t worry, we won’t spare him,” returned Elfen¬ 
bein, smiling. 

And indeed Martin Elfenbein did not spare him. 
Martin was a hard taskmaster and gave orders in a 
surly voice, devoid of human warmth. Albert began 
where he had left off at Rindskopf’s-—copying letters, 
filling in exchange blanks, and other uncongenial la¬ 
bors. 


no THE SUBLIME JESTER 

He grew morose and kept to himself. Even poetry 
had lost all interest for him. He picked up a volume 
by Goethe, by Lessing, by Schiller, but their song 
received no response from his soul. Was his imagina¬ 
tion becoming barren? He tried to express his despair 
but even in this he failed. His mind was a blank. 
No new thoughts, no fresh sfentiments, nothing but 
stagnation. 

One morning his uncle invited him to his country 
home and at once his slumbering sentiments reawak¬ 
ened. The hope of meeting his cousin Hilda, whose 
memory he had cherished since she visited Gunsdorf 
two years ago, changed his depressing gloom to buoyant 
cheer. His muse had suddenly returned. He was full 
of song and merriment. 


HILDA. 


\ 


I. 


HE sight of Hilda seemed to Albert like a dream 



come true. Instead of the girl of his fancy, how- 


ever, he was met by a young lady with the poise 
of one accustomed to drawing room manners. The girl 
of his memory was an unsophisticated young girl of fif ¬ 
teen. And while she was cordial, her cordiality lacked 
the intimacy he had hoped for. 

His inner chafing made him regard everybody around 
him with misgiving. With the hypersensitiveness of the 
dreamer he divined disparagement in the glances of the 
smartly dressed people around him. He felt himself an 
outsider, a mere poor relative. He wished to flee, and 
would have fled but for the presence of his cousin. 

But the more friendliness shown him the more rest¬ 
less he became. It was not friendliness he wanted. He 
craved affection, not merely the formal friendship of a 
host. And the people about him treated him as a guest, 
yet differently from the other guests who were visiting 
the banker at the time. The other guests were a lively 
group and indulged in dances, games, and amusing pas¬ 
times, none of which engaged his interest. His aunt en¬ 
couraged him and gave him veiled hints about the ameni- 


111 


112 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

ties of society and etiquette, and this exasperated him 
still more. 

So instead of joining the gay circle he would repair 
to the seashore, a short distance away, and spend hours 
watching the tide, with tumult in his brain and bitter¬ 
ness in his breast. 

One day at sunset he found himself alone on the sea¬ 
shore, a creeping, soothing melancholy stealing over him. 
1 here were horizontal bars in the west resembling a rus¬ 
tic fence, one plank of which was jagged and broken, 
with tatters of gold and silver streaming from it, as if 
the sun in its flight had forced its way through this bar¬ 
rier, leaving behind fragments of its gorgeous raiment. 
For a while he sat and gazed with rapture in his heart. 
He sat crouched like a Japanese Buddha, his eyes 
screwed up, his elbows upon his knees, his head between 
his hands. 

He yielded to the scene before him sensuously, his 
whole being .immersed in it. He gave himself to the 
sight and sounds as a voluptuary gives himself to lust. 
He was scarcely conscious that he was thinking of 
Hilda instead of the sunset. He thought she had been 
paying no attention to him. And yet there was some¬ 
thing about her that gave him hope . . . 

Footsteps down the poplar lane. His heart beat fast. 
He knew they were her footsteps; and she was alone. 
Had she seen him? She turned quickly around and 
walked back. She walked rapidly with the unsteady 
gait of fright. 

“She hates me,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps? 
1 here was again a flutter of hope. He had read a great 
number of romances and began to reason, as if reason 
ever helped a lover solve the great problem. But he 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


113 


reasoned both ways with equal conviction. She-loves- 
me and she-loves-me-not are reached by the same route. 
He found his place of vantage less enticing. The sunset 
and the restless sea lacked the romantic interest of a 
moment before. His mind drifted in other directions. 
He thought of his uncle, of his aunt, of the guests. Why 
did he find himself out of joint with people around him? 
What was there that made him rebellious in their midst? 
Why did he feel their faults so keenly, so glaringly? 
Why was he not in sympathy with them? He had felt 
out of place in Gunsdorf, in the Judengasse, and now 
he was feeling out of place at his uncle’s house. His 
thoughts, his tastes, his inclinations, his aspirations, 
were all Hellenic—there was not a vestige of the He¬ 
braic in him, he concluded. He did not yet realize that 
these vagaries, this very world-weariness—the Welt - 
schmerz —was Hebraic, that what he thought emanated 
from the Acropolis, came from Mount Carmel and 
from the plains of Sharon. 

In the evening he found himself alone in his room, the 
silence of the summer night around him. He was 
thought-weary. He had blown out the candle and wel¬ 
comed the darkness. A nightingale was singing some¬ 
where in the grove. He pushed the window further 
open. He caught the distant sound of the waves break¬ 
ing on the cliffs; it was the sweeping sound of contend¬ 
ing forces. A fire-fly was flitting around—intermittent 
pin-pricks in the dark curtain before him. His fatiguing 
thoughts had fled. His brain was a blank. He was only 
a child of the senses. Peace gathered within him, the 
sweet peace of night and of silence. Emotions pos¬ 
sessed him—no, not emotions which stir conflict but those 
that instill a conscious soothing, a Slumbering sensuous- 


114 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

ness. He leaned back in his chair by the window, un¬ 
seeing, unthinking. 

Gradually—in faint outline—the image of Hilda was 
before him . . . 

There had been dancing earlier in the evening and he 
now saw Hilda waltzing around the room, her firm little 
feet moving nimbly, a twinkle in her roguish eyes as she 
flitted by and glanced over her partner’s shoulder toward 
where he was seated. Confound it, why had he never 
learned to dance! 

He recalled the last time he had made an effort to 
learn to dance and laughed at himself. He could now 
hear that little Frenchman count un, deux, trots — 
un, deux , trois. The Frenchman shook his head and 
told him he had no rhythm in his soul! If he had 
told him he had no rhythm in his feet he could have 
forgiven him. Albert was in a rage and the French 
dancing-master ran for his life, and later told everybody 
that Herr Zorn was quite mad, quite insane. 

Yes, he ought to learn to dance. He must learn the 
amenities of the young, as Aunt Betty had hinted. In 
some ways he acted like a middle-aged man—this was 
what Aunt Betty had said smilingly. Perhaps this was 
the reason Hilda was acting so peculiarly in his presence, 
he said to himself; she treated him as if he were middle- 
aged. He was too agitated to sit still ... 

He jumped up from his seat and walked across the 
dark room. No, no, he could not be like the others— 
he could not—those shallow-brained parrots, repeating 
the same phrases, the same platitudes, the same inane 
compliments to ladies—he could not bear these smug 
Philistines! But Hilda-~ 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


115 


A bird was singing. Yes, it was the melting notes of 
the nightingale. He was again seated by the window, 
thoughtless, a delicious sensuousness filling his whole 
being, his eyes resting on the shadow of the trees in the 
light of the stars, the tranquility of the night pos¬ 
sessed him . . . 


II. 

He arose quite happy the next morning, boyishly 
happy. He wrote a few verses and felt happier still. 
Then he read his lines over and the music of his own 
words made him jubilant. Dissatisfaction with his com¬ 
position never came to him until the day after; on the 
same day he was always happy, always pleased with 
himself - 

And his mood seemed contagious. Aunt Betty smiled 
upon him and Hilda, too, suddenly seemed attentive. She 
even suggested a walk with him, and on the way through 
the garden stooped to pluck a rose for him and then 
plucked another, the stem of which she held between 
her teeth, the red flower drooping over her chin. He 
found himself talking to her without timidity, without 
constraint, and she, too, laughed and recalled little pranks 
he played on her when she visited Gunsdorf. He re¬ 
minded her that she had been a little girl then, her hair 
like a loose skein of silk hanging down her back and 
even remembered the color of her dress and the ribbon 
she had worn in her hair. His voice seemed to caress 
every garment of hers as he dwelt in detail upon her 
dress in those days and her attire now. She blushed as 
her eyes met his. She felt as if he had actually passed 


116 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


his hand over her dress as he contrasted her former 
short dresses with her present long skirt. He kept at a 
respectful distance from her but once or twice his sleeve 
came in contact with her sleeve and he consciously 
shrank back half a step, and she was strangely conscious 
of the momentary touch. 

He talked freely, bubbling over. He was alone with 
her, just she and he. He felt for a moment that there 
was nobody else on earth but the two of them. And they 
were walking through the narrow paths, high hedges 
on either side, the sunlight sifting through like the finest 
silvery powder, birds twittering and chirping every¬ 
where. At times she walked ahead of him—when the 
path was too narrow for them to walk side by side— 
the bit of neck between her coiled hair and the collar of 
her dress a delicious magnet, her elastic yet vigorous 
step music to his ears. He was deploring the fact that 
so few people in Hamburg were interested in poetry. 
She agreed with him and that irritated him without 
knowing why and he became cynical. 

“The people in Hamburg care more for beer and 
sauerkraut than for Lessing and Goethe,” he was saying. 
“They lack romance—” Then he tossed his head, with 
a spiteful smile on his lips, and added, “When Cupid 
darted his arrow at the Hamburg women he struck them 
in the stomach instead of the heart.” 

Hilda walked on in silence. His witticism displeased 
her. He had made a few slurring remarks about Ham¬ 
burgers before. They were walking side by side and he 
noticed the slight change in her face. She did not seem 
as friendly as before. 

“I was not referring to all Hamburgers,” he said in 
a jesting tone emphasizing the dll 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


117 


He wished to make some allusion to herself but could 
not. She suddenly seemed so distant. He thought he 
detected anger in her eyes. Then he attempted playful¬ 
ness, but that seemed to annoy her still more. Women 
were a capricious lot, he concluded. He was beginning 
to understand women, he was persuading himself, with¬ 
out realizing that to understand them was the surest 
means of being disliked by them. 

When they returned to the house they found the fa¬ 
mily on the veranda. Hilda rushed up to her mother 
as if she had lost her way and at last found it. He again 
felt awkward. 

He went to his room and finished the poem that he 
had begun the day before and copied it in a neat hand 
and again went in search of Hilda. He found her seated 
on the ground under a tree with a book in her lap. 

He approached her without timidity and at first stood 
by her chatting, then sat down beside her. Albert was 
a good talker when he had a definite subject but lacked 
the art of polite social conversation. He was at his best 
when attacking or praising someone or something. The 
book in her hand was a peg on which to hang conver¬ 
sation, and he made an attempt to look at it. 

“Is the book so bad that you would not have anyone 
see it?” he teased her as she declined to show it to him. 

“No, it's a good book/*—still holding it behind her 
as if to prevent him from seizing it. 

“By whom was it written?” 

She shook her head negatively, a faint smile in her 
eyes. 

“What’s the name?” 

Her head again shook from side to side. 

“What’s it about?” 


118 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

“You are too young to know/’ She laughed softly, 
her eyes contracting. 

“Let’s talk of something more interesting—Rudolph, 
for instance.” 

(Rudolph was one of the young men of whom Albert 
was jealous.) 

She gave a short mischievous laugh. 

He looked at her earnestly. He wondered why she 
was teasing him about Rudolph. Her mobile features 
underwent expressions he could not understand. Then 
he turned to her suddenly, with self-pity in his voice, 
and said, “Why do you dislike me so much, Hilda?” 

And before she had a chance to reply he added petu¬ 
lantly, “Everybody here dislikes me—everybody!” 

There was the peevishness of the vexed child in his 
voice, with a lump of emotion in his throat. 

Although he had not clearly thought of this before, 
no sooner had the words escaped him than he believed 
them. He felt himself hated by all around him. 

Her attitude toward him changed instantly. Leaning 
forward, with the book replaced in her lap so he could 
see it was “Herman and Dorothea”, she said, “Oh, Al¬ 
bert, you only imagine things. Mother is very fond of 
you, and so is father, only they don’t think you apply 
yourself to business assiduously enough.” 

Her beautiful sea-green eyes rested on his face sym¬ 
pathetically. She looked at him as if to convince him 
she was not merely saying this to soothe him. 

“I know, I know ,they all think me an idler, a good- 
for-nothing, a worthless fellow.” His words came preci¬ 
pitately, passionately. “They can’t see any good in any¬ 
one unless he is immersed in business-nothing counts 
but business success. All I hear is money, money, money 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


119 


everywhere! He raised his hands as if he meant to shut 
out the sight of money. “It rings in my ears from morn¬ 
ing till night—it rings all over Hamburg. It’s deafening 
—money! Nothing else interests anybody. Neither li¬ 
terature nor music nor art of any sort. Money seems 
an end in itself. Ah! It’s maddening—maddening! 
I am made to feel every moment that God created 
all the beauty in the world—the green trees and the 
blooming flowers and the foamy waves—and wo¬ 
men’s beautiful eyes and their luxuriant hair and their 
crimson lips (he was looking at her yearningly)—with 
only one end in the scheme of creation—money! Oh, 
I am disgusted with everything-.” 

“You are morbid, Albert,” she said, looking straight 
at him and noting the despondency in his dreamy coun¬ 
tenance. Then she smiled and added, “You are a Wer- 
ther without a Charlotte.” 

He felt the sting of her remark. To him her flippant 
retort was full of meaning. 

“Even you hate me,” he burst out. 

He turned his face away. 

“What makes you say such things ?” she demanded. 

“I can see it. You don’t act toward me as you do 
toward—” he tossed his head without completing the 
sentence. 

“As I do toward Rudolph,” she finished it for him with 
a light laugh. Then she gazed at him for a moment and, 
shaking her head, said, “You silly boy.” 

“I don’t blame you—Rudolph is a shrewd business 
man and I am only a clerk in your father’s bank—” 

“So you think I am in love with Rudolph—” 

“I know you hate me—” 

“Why should I hate you?” 


120 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Her sparring with him cheered him even though his 
face was still sad. He was happy to hear her contradict 
him. They soon drifted to “Herman and Dorothea'' 
and he began to talk of Goethe. He wished to read her 
the poem he had just finished but he wondered if she 
would divine who had inspired it. He persuaded himself 
he did not want her to know this. And while he was 
battling with the idea his hand traveled to his pocket 
and he withdrew the neatly copied verses. 

He watched her face eagerly as her eyes wandered 
over the sheet. She seemed to be reading every line 
over and over in order to grasp their meaning. 

He had hoped she would make some allusion to the 
subject described. He had also hoped she might ask 
him for permission to keep the poem, but not a word. 
Her eyes only contracted a bit, a faint deepening of 
color on her cheeks, and she had suddenly again grown 
distant. He felt as if she had unexpectedly stretched 
out her arm and forbade him to come near her. He was 
conscious of the awkwardness of her silence. Her lips 
were closed tightly as she would not open them for fear 
a word might drop. 

“You think poetry mere drivel, don’t you?” he said 
as he awkwardly replaced the poem into his pocket. 

Her eyelashes rose, a silent look, but without a re¬ 
sponsive syllable. 

“At least you think my poetry is drivel,” he soon 
added. 

J here was the faintest smile playing around her 
lips. Her silence and smile seemed to him a challenge. 
His dormant pride, his sublime confidence in his powers, 
suddenly made him boastful. There was fire in his eyes! 

\ ou just wait and 111 show you all that my poems 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


121 


are no drivel. I'll make my songs ring throughout the 
land. Every man, woman, and child shall read them. 
You may all laugh at me now—and Rudolph may jest 
about me—but I'll make them all listen to me some 
day—" 

He looked at her face but could read nothing in it. 
The next moment he became conscious of his boasting 
and felt ashamed of his utterances. 

“Oh, I am a fool,” he burst out as if talking to him¬ 
self. “You think me a braggart, don’t you?” He touched 
her hand and looked beseechingly at her. 

She looked at him intently for a bare second. 

“I am very unhappy,—I’ve always been unhappy. I 
am a little child crying for the moon, and the moon is 
so far, far away and doesn’t even know that a poor 
child is crying for it.” 

There were unshed tears in his eyes. 

“Why do you make yourself so unhappy?” she asked 
and stirred, with a frown on her pretty face. 

But he did not answer. He noticed the approach of 
Uncle Leopold and Aunt Betty. 

“Why so serious?” Aunt Betty asked, smiling and at 
the same time studying Hilda’s face. 

“We were discussing poetry,” she answered, rising. 


III. 

Albert appeared at dinner and vanished immediately 
after that. He scarcely spoke a word during the meal. 
But this was not unusual. Dinner in this household was 
served with such elaborate ceremony—waiters and but¬ 
lers and many courses—that the stiffness of it all robbed 


122 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


him of speech. Aunt Betty noticed his glance in Hilda’s 
direction once or twice but her daughter ignored her 
cousin entirely. The mother heaved a sigh of relief. She 
had been unduly alarmed. 

What the watchful mother failed to observe was that 
as they rose from the table and were passing to the ad* 
joining room Albert dashed across to Hilda and mumbled 
something in a panting voice and left abruptly. She 
paled but did not turn to see whither he had gone. 

She joined her family but after a while chose a se¬ 
cluded place, apparently reading. She turned the pages 
of her book as if she were perusing them without seeing 
a word before her. She seemed vexed and perplexed 
and now and then jerked her head as if shaking off an 
intruding thought. Finally she walked up to her room 
and closed the door resolutely as if she had made a deci¬ 
sion and given emphatic expression to it. She then 
threw herself on her bed and lay for a time, staring at 
the ceiling. 

“Seven o’clock near Klopstock’s grave,” she murmured 
to herself. 

Shortly after that she walked down stairs and re¬ 
mained standing in the doorway over the veranda and 
walked slowly, deliberately, down the broad stone steps, 
pausing and lingering a while on every step, like a play¬ 
ful child, and looking at her feet as she moved them. 
When she reached the pebbled path of the winding walk 
she played with the little stones with the tip of her 
dainty slipper as if there were not a single thought pass¬ 
ing through her mind. Presently she was standing before 
the marble-walled well in the centre of the garden and 
looked curiously at the carved figures on the outside as 
if she had never seen them before. Dimly she remem- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


123 


bered that Albert had spoken of them the other day-— 
they were mythological figures and he had explained 
them to her. She recalled his face and the manner in 
which he looked at her as he spoke of the beautiful 
goddesses of Greece. 

She was soon out of sight of the beautiful mansion 
on the hill, sauntering down the slope that led to the 
seashore. Along the Elbe was a cliff-walk that led to a 
promontory on which was the grave of him who sang 
of The Messiah. 

The sun was going down but it was still long before 
sunset in this northern clime. There was a golden haze 
in the air, with hoards of mosquitoes and tiny insects in 
column formation flitting about like a dancing proces¬ 
sion. Klopstock’s grave was west of the Zorn villa, where 
the sun was sliding down the curving horizon and mak¬ 
ing the many-branched linden tree over the tomb look 
like a burnished bush. There was tumult in her brain 
and her heart was beating irregularly. A number of 
times she halted and half-turned, as if she were attempt¬ 
ing to twist herself loose from the embrace of some in¬ 
visible being, but soon again she proceeded on her way. 

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come/' he said as he came 
running toward her. His teeth were almost chattering, 
his voice was strained. 

“I shouldn’t have come—I know I shouldn’t,” she was 
saying, scarcely glancing at him. 

“Why do you despise me so?—” 

He touched her hand which she withdrew quickly and 
put it back of her like an angered child. 

“You don’t know how miserable I feel—Hilda—.” 
His voice was plaintive, pleading. “I know you detest 


124 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


me—You don’t even care for my poems, the echoes of 
my heart. Oh, Hilda—just a word—” 

“You make me so unhappy,” she interrupted him. He 
thought he saw anger in her eyes. 

“I am so sorry if my love makes you unhappy.” His 
voice was now penitent, humble, beseeching. “But I 
can’t help it, Hilda. We don’t will love—love wills us. 
I understand. I am not blaming you—you can’t help 
hating me as I can’t help loving you. I am not as dull 
as you think. I understand—Some girl might love me 
and I mightn’t care for her—” 

Her eyes dilated; a pallor crept over her cheeks. 

“Is that girl in Hamburg?” There was naivete in 
her tone. 

“There is no other girl. No one is in love with me. 
I was only explaining how nature works. One loves 
and the beloved loves another—” 

“I am sure you have a girl in mind. Who is she?” 

“I swear to you there is no one—” 

“I am sure from the way you said it there is someone 
—anyhow, you wouldn’t tell me even if there were—” 

“I would tell you the truth—I wouldn’t be ashamed to 
tell you if someone were in love with me. Oh, a long 
time ago—I was a youngster then.” 

“Is she still in love with you?” 

He waved his arms in despair. 

“Oh, no, she is dead—But I am not thinking of any¬ 
one but you—” 

“What did the other girl look like ? Was she light or 
dark?” 

“Oh, why speak of her—she is dead, I tell you—” he 
spoke impatiently. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


125 


“You must still be thinking of her or you wouldn’t 
remember her now. I am sure you are in love with hei 
still—was she pretty?” 

He was beside himself. 

“I tell you she is dead—“There was exasperation in 
his tone. 

“And you mean to tell me you never had a love affair 
since then?” 

She was drawing an 8 on the ground with the tip of 
her slipper. 

“Of course I have never loved anyone as I love you.” 

“Then you did love her!” 

“I might have had a boyish fancy—I wrote a poem 
about her—’” 

“And some day you’ll write a poem about me and all 
will be ended.” 

“Hilda, why do you torture me so?—” 

He clasped her hand and kissed it. She withdrew her 
hand and said he must not do this. 

“I know I shouldn’t have come here—I know I 
shouldn’t—some one might have seen us—” 

“And what if they did?” 

“Oh, Albert, you don’t understand—” 

He was about to seize her hand again but she ran 
down the path. 


IV. 

When Hilda had suddenly left him he remained at 
Klopstock’s grave until the stars appeared. He found 
the grave symbolic. The grave was the only place for 
a poet, he mused in despair—yes, a silent grave under a 


126 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


shady tree, the roar of the sea in the distance, the silence 
of fields around. Ah! the serenity and the beauty of 
lying still without surging blood, without agitated nerves, 
wrapt in a white shroud in the bosom of the cool earth, 
in peace, with no sound save the swaying of the branches 
and the chance song of a bird! The burden of youth 
was oppressing him, the presentiments of sorrows to 
come were in his heart. For the moment he wished he 
were dead-dead at the feet of the silent poet who had 
sung so gloriously of the Redeemer. He remained 
standing before the grave in sad contemplation of his 
plight. In vain had he consoled himself that Hilda loved 
him. She was just playing with him, he mused bitterly. 

He presently fancied himself dead, stretched on 
the grass alongside the hillock which held the dust of the 
great poet, Hilda standing over his corpse and weeping. 
There was a touch of joy in his fantasy. Hilda weep¬ 
ing over his dead body! 

He had no recollection of returning to his room. He 
was dimly conscious of trying to fall asleep when Klop- 
stock opened the door softly and tripped in. Klopstock 
was wrapt in a white shroud and his face was of a 
deathly pallor. His face seemed so feminine, and the 
eyelashes drooped like Hilda’s. Klopstock then waved 
an arm and exclaimed— 

“Seven times the thund’rous strokes had rent the 
veil. 

When now the voice of God in gentle tone 
Was heard descending: ‘God is love,’ it spoke; 

‘Love, ere the worlds or their inhabitants 
To life were called’-” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


127 


Klopstock wept as he recited these immortal lines and 
his copious tears dropped on Albert’s brow and curled 
into the corners of his mouth. A poet’s tears were salt- 
ier than those of ordinary mortals, Albert was saying to 
himself as he felt the taste of the drops. He wondered 
what Rudolph was doing there. For it was not Klop¬ 
stock but Rudolph standing at the foot of his bed. Ru¬ 
dolph was pulling Hilda by the arm and she was laugh¬ 
ing—everybody was laughing, and the orchestra was 
playing at the Swiss pavilion on the Jungfernstieg. 
Strange that instead of the musicians it was the linden 
tree—the linden tree over Klopstock’s grave—that stood 
in the middle of the musicians’ platform. To the right 
of the tree was an open coffin, the lid lying alongside of 
it. Somebody was reading a prayer—he could not tell 
whether it was in Latin or in Hebrew—yes, it was Aaron 
Hirsch reading from a prayer book, tears coursing down 
his bearded face. 

“You are dead, Albert Zorn—you are dead—you are 
dead,” Hirsch was saying. Then he felt himself lifted 
into the coffin, the coffin was lowered, clods of earth 
falling upon the lid—thud! thud! thud!—he was choking 
—he was trying to get his breath . . . 

When he awoke he remembered that he was to leave 
for Hamburg early that morning. Yes, somebody was 
knocking at his door. He dressed quickly, for he knew 
his uncle was an impatient man, and rushed downstairs, 
where he found him pacing up and down the drawing 
room, a cigar between his teeth. He seemed angry, and 
when Albert bade him good morning he grunted. Soon 
Aunt Betty appeared, and told him to go to the dining¬ 
room and have his breakfast as they had already had 
theirs. The rest of the family had not yet risen. 


128 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Aunt Betty was kinder than usual. Before leaving 
she was very solicitous and kissed him affectionately. 

Soon the carriage rolled away along the road lined 
with poplars, the rising sun shining cheerily, birds 
carolling merrily, the horses whipping their tails in 
high spirits . . . 

V. 

At present Hamburg seemed to Albert even more 
prosaic than ever. He felt more lonesome, everybody 
bored him. As the master hums so do the hirelings sing. 
Everyone in the bank treated him as if he did not belong 
there, and the little courtesy he received was perfunc¬ 
tory, and out of respect for his uncle. They had no re¬ 
gard for a young man who wrote poetry and talked 
philosophy. Aaron Hirsch was the only one who showed 
him proper respect, but even he looked around as if 
afraid to be caught talking familiarly with the young 
idler. 

On the day of his return from his uncle's villa, Aaron 
clasped his hand and held it rather affectionately for a 
moment or so. 

‘Til bet you had a wonderful time. Isn't the villa 
wonderful! Salomon in all his glory never had a finer 
palace. And the grounds!" He shrugged his shoulders 
with an expression of the inexpressible. “It made me 
think of the Garden of Eden. And that stream running 
through the woods back of the mansion—It's just like 
the river Hiddekel in the Bible! Yes, sir, a veritable 
Garden of Eden, with no beguiling serpent to cause 
trouble in the family—” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


129 


Aaron laughed a loud “Hi-hi” and “Ho-ho!” but he 
presently checked himself, with a serious grimace on his 
face. 

“You don’t seem very happy—”He eyed him scruti- 
nizingly. “Perhaps there was a beguiling serpent after 
all.” He emitted a forced little laugh. 

“There is a beguiling serpent in every Garden of 
Eden,” replied Albert in a jesting tone. 

Hirsch then began to talk of other things. 

“I should like to take you to the Reform Temple,” he 
was saying, “where all the aristocrats go. I ? No, I don’t 
belong there. I am an old-fashioned Jew, and ortho¬ 
doxy is good enough for the likes of me. And to tell the 
truth—” he moved closer to Albert and lowered his voice 
as if he were about to confide a secret—“I don’t care 
much for this hocus-pocus reform. If I want to pray 
to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I need no 
groaning organ or chanting choir to carry my prayers to 
heaven. No, not me. Whenever I visit the Reform 
synagogue I am reminded of the time the Prussian King 
was here last winter. There was so much parading and 
drumming and shooting of cannon in his honor that 
when he addressed the people no one could hear a word 
he said. Yes, my child, I am an old-fashioned Jew. I 
love my Hebrew prayers with all their trimmings as I 
love my Chalet cooked in the old way—I prefer it to the 
best Rost-Braten prepared by your uncle’s chef. When 
I want to pray I wrap myself in my tails and pray. I 
don’t care for the Protestant hymns Judaised. I prefer 
a heart-to-heart talk with my God in the language we 
both understand—God and I—and no elocutionary non¬ 
sense. I mean no offense, God forbid—no, no, I know 
my place and mean no criticism of my betters. Your 


130 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


esteemed uncle belongs to the Reformers, and I get m> 
bread and butter from him. Indeed, I do not mean to 
criticize my superiors, but when I get to the Temple 1 
get the shivers, so help me God! There is no warmth in 
it. Doctor Kley, the preacher, is afraid to make a ges¬ 
ture with his arms for fear he might be mistaken for a 
Jew—” Hirsch bleated long and juicily—” and the con¬ 
gregation sit as if they are afraid to stir and awaken 
God from His slumber. A hearty prayer for me! The 
God of Israel never cared for Hamburg manners.” 

“Why don’t you try and convert my uncle ?” Albert 
goaded him on. 

“I convert your uncle? There are too many conver¬ 
sions already; and far be it from me—a common, every¬ 
day man—to proselyte. Aaron Hirsch knows when to 
talk and when to hold his tongue.” 

“Why not turn Christian and be done with it?” asked 
Albert, hiding an inner chuckle. 

Aaron placed the index finger at his elongated nose 
and, glancing at the young man sideways, his head slight¬ 
ly inclined to one side, said, “Christianity, my child, is 
no better than Judaism. There is Catholicism for in¬ 
stance—I went into a Catholic church the other day and 
the sadness of it all and the flickering of candles and the 
smell of incense made me feel that God had just died 
and had not been embalmed soon enough. No, no, my 
child, a living, cheerful God for Aaron Hirsch!” 

“How about the Protestant religion?” 

“That’s a little better, I own. I visited the Old Protes¬ 
tant Church only last year. No crosses, no effigies, no 
incense, no smell of the dead—honestly, if they left Jesus 
out of their ritual I might be tempted to let the Protes¬ 
tants join our synagogue.” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


131 


Albert found Hirsch stimulating. As in the case of 
books Albert did not find Hirsch valuable for his own 
sake but for his jabber that aroused new thoughts in his 
brain. 

After business hours he could not remain in his room 
and yet would accept no invitations to call upon those 
who desired to show him hospitality, He often left his 
room in self-defense against Frau Rodbertus’ mono¬ 
logues. She was tall and flat, her hair parted in the 
middle, a gown sweeping to the floor and only betraying 
the tips of her slippers. Her face was always in repose, 
her lips pouting, as if she were ready to be painted at 
any moment. She habitually had her hands clasped in 
front of her, even when standing, and when in action 
(she never stopped talking) she slightly moved her head 
from side to side with the coquetry of a young girl on 
her first introduction to a presentable young man. 
Albert had no difficulties in finding out that the pretty 
girl he saw at her house on the day of his arrival was 
the daughter of a French emigre, a relation of hers. 

Although, as directed by his uncle, Aaron volunteered 
to show him the city, Albert preferred to make his own 
discoveries. He tramped the streets, dropped into cafes, 
studied the people about him and when bed-time came 
was exhausted and irritated. There was no variety of 
types here to arouse his lively imagination. Big, rotund 
men with red faces, and insipid flaxen haired youths with 
expressionless eyes and duel scars; stout, dull women, 
and flighty girls who flaunted their sex in the face of 
every passerby on the Jungfernstieg. 

He would return to his room overwhelmed by a feel¬ 
ing of sordidness. No new thoughts, no fresh sentiments, 
nothing but stagnation. He was in despair. He feared 


132 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the poet in him had suddenly died. An alarming 
thought raced through his brain one evening. Was the 
ambition of his youth a vain dream? He picked up a 
volume of Goethe, of Lessing, of Klopstock, but they re¬ 
ceived no response from his soul; they did not thrill him; 
their beauty was meaningless to him; their imageries 
evoked no visions in his mind. A terrible fear possessed 
him. Was he becoming sterile? Was his imagination 
barren? He tried to express his present despair but 
even that failed him. His mind was a blank. He felt 
like a singer who suddenly finds his voice failing. He 
had not yet learned that beauty often springs from sor¬ 
row, that despair often begets ecstasy. 


VI. 

As time went on he felt more lonesome, more isolated, 
more bored. He was invited to places but he found the 
people uninteresting. He was only enlarging his gallery 
of faces. They were all discussing the same subjects, 
repeating the same gossip, rehashing the same anecdotes. 
He was young, imaginative, and craved novelty; and he 
was too young to know that in his day, no different from 
the day of the King Solomon, there was nothing new 
under the sun. He had yet to learn that whatever new 
there is in life is in one s own mind and that there are 
but few people in any generation who have mind enough 
to see it. 

And what seemed to others complicated was so simple 
to him. People blabbed about religion, fought over theo¬ 
logy, hated each other because of sect, as if these were 
vital principles of life while to him they were mere play- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


133 


things, playthings for children. He could not grasp what 
the struggle was about. Though considered irreligious 
he loved the Bible and loved God as Spinoza had loved 
Him, as all peope of real intellect loved Him. No other 
book was as precious to him as the Bible—he had read 
it over and over and was still reading it with refreshing 
joy, and its poetry, its allegories, its legends, its fables 
and parables, and its inundating beauty captivated his 
soul—but he found nothing mysterious in it except the 
mystery there was in all things beautiful. To him who 
sees clearly all things are simple. What were the Jesuits 
and the Lutherans and the Mendelsohnians and the Tal¬ 
mudists and the Kantians and the Fichteans—what were 
they all fighting over? Did any one really believe that 
God created the universe in six days? he asked himself 
time and again. Did any sane person earnestly claim 
the serpent myth to have been a real fact? Did any one 
earnestly believe the hundreds of allegories scattered 
throughout the Great Book to be actual happenings? Did 
any one believe in the historical parts in the Bible any 
more than in Persian or Grecian myths ? Did any one en¬ 
tertain faith in the immaculate conception? Of course, 
he knew the ignorant and superstitious believed in fe¬ 
tishes, but he could not fully comprehend that the so- 
called enlightened sincerely believed in all these. He 
looked into his own mind and believed he understood all 
minds. He judged all minds by his own. At times, in his 
wanderings through the streets, brandishing his cane and 
smiling cynically, he said to himself that either he was 
an imbecile and did not possess the ordinary faculties of 
a human being or the world was peopled with idiots. 
There could be no compromise between the two; either 
he saw clearly or the millions of struggling bigots saw 


134 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the truth. With the sublime self-assurance of youth he 
knew he was right and laughed pitifully at the erring 
souls around him. Yes, he understood Voltaire. Who 
would not laugh at the sight of an army of children 
dressed up in clothes of grown men and women? Who 
would not scoff at the prattling babes imitating the lan¬ 
guage of their elders? The children must have some 
things to play with or to fight over, he mused. Religion 
or War? Since the sound of cannon had ceased, the 
children of men now engaged with other playthings. 
When everything else fails religion supplies the demand 
for a universal plaything. War and Religion—he almost 
preferred the former. The ugly spectacle of Hamburg's 
factionalism disgusted him. And whenever strife is ripe 
he beheld all history at a glance—after every great 
war, after every economic upheaval, after every revolu¬ 
tion, people turned against his race. He now understood 
why his people were called chosen. 

His thoughts soon turned to Greece as one tired of a 
long winter in the north turns to the sunny south. Greece 
of old was the sunshine in his dreary existence. He 
could not understand the petty strife of the theology of 
his day but he grasped the meaning of Old Greece. The 
one was sordid prose, the other idyllic poetry. Prose 
must speak in exact terms, poetry may be fantastic. He 
yearned for deities rising from ocean waves, for a god 
on Olympus, for goddesses with harps and rainbows and 
vessels of nectar. The gods of Hamburg savoured of 
incense and garlic. 

Hilda was to him what the deities were to the Old 
Greeks, an object of adoration. She was his Venus, a 
composite of all things beautiful, his illusion. In his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


135 


present state she was the only drop of sweetness in his 
bitter cup. All his innate beauty-worship, and all his 
vision, was centered upon her. What attributes were 
not hers his fancy supplied. And the more hopeless his 
romantic fancy had become the more he craved her love 
—he loved to run after the retreating horizon. At times 
he would become vexed and swear that he would love 
her no more. Twice he had sent her poems and she had 
not even acknowledged them, yet he would send her an¬ 
other poem. It was a sweet lyric, the offspring of pure 
ecstasy. It had leaped into being like a bud bursting 
into bloom. For days he had hummed it to himself— 
stroked the petals—and finally dispatched it to her. He 
wanted her to know his great sorrow. He was sure she 
would understand him now. But like its predecessors, 
it remained unacknowledged and unanswered. 

A few days later on his return from the midday meal, 
Aaron Hirsch came up to him, his perspiring face bask¬ 
ing in a sunny smile. “I suppose you have dined with 
the family today.” 

His voice was ingratiating. Albert looked puzzled. 

“Were you not invited? Your esteemed aunt was here 
and your lovely cousin, Fraulein Hilda, and, I heard 
your esteemed uncle say they were going to have a little 
family dinner.” 

Aaron clasped his little beard as if he were shaking 
hands with a dear friend as he proceeded, “Perhaps I 
should not have told you this, but you know it hurts me 
—yes, it hurts me to see you unappreciated. Of course, 
I did not dare say all there was on my mind but one day 
I said to your esteemed uncle—'Herr Banquier’, says I, 
‘that nephew of yours will yet do you great honor’, 
sa y S I —these are the very words I said. I hate to flatter 


136 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


you but I told him a thing or two about you that did 
you no harm, for I know there are others— I’ll mention 
no names—there are others who whisper other things 
in your esteemed uncle’s ear.” And with a hushing 
movement of his hand he added, “You know the saying, 
‘An ox has a long tongue but cannot speak.’ One must 
guard his bread and butter—I have a wife and seven 
children!” With a finger at his lips he made a helpless 
grimace- 

Albert’s face clouded. He did not discuss his personal 
affairs with Aaron, though he often encouraged the little 
man’s monologues. Aaron appealed to his sense of hu¬ 
mor. His expressions, his gestures, his comments, were 
mirth-provoking. Today he made no rejoinder. He 
wanted Hirsch to leave him alone. His aunt and Hilda 
visited the bank and had not taken the trouble to see 
him—Hilda, to whom he had sent his finest lyrics only 
a few days ago! 

He rose from his work and, without saying a word to 
anyone, left the bank. He overheard Mr. Elfenbein 
mumble something about his idleness but he did not care. 
A thousand needles were pricking at the base of his 
brain. He could not stand still. With cane in hand he 
sauntered along the Jungfernstieg, listlessly watched the 
swans in the Alster basin, and finally landed in the Swiss 
Pavilion, Hamburg’s most festive cafe. 


VII 

When he next visited his uncle’s summer home and 
met Hilda he sought in vain for a trace of self-conscious¬ 
ness in her countenance. She received him as cordially 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


137 


and as calmly as Aunt Betty. She inquired about his 
progress at the bank, whether he had made friends at 
Hamburg, quite indifferently. She smilingly “hoped” 
that his impressions of “the vulgar Hamburgers”-—a 
phrase he had used—had changed. He scented a chal¬ 
lenge in this remark and rushed to prove the assertion. 

The conversation was soon interrupted- Aunt Betty 
joined them. And she usually managed to be around 
whenever Albert talked to Hilda. 

One afternoon he spied Hilda alone. 

He had been wandering around from ennui. He was 
almost sorry that he had come here. He found life here 
as monotonous as in Hamburg; at times even more so- 
There was here too much enforced etiquette and formali¬ 
ty to suit his independent spirit. Here he was not him¬ 
self. His uncle, his aunt, the guests—this time there 
were a few dignitaries, officials and such—everyone was 
so proper, the talk was so stereotyped, that he found him¬ 
self in a state of boredom. Hilda was the only person 
to relieve the monotony, but she seemed hedged about 
on all sides. Boldly he made for where she was seated- 

He felt that she knew of his approach, but she gave 
no sign, except that she appeared more absent minded 
than usual. 

“Why do you avoid me, Hilda?” he begged. He did 
not realize that unto the lover that begs nothing shall 
be given. 

“It’s best that I should ” 

She was looking away from him. She was seated as 
if posing, her left elbow on her knee. 

“Hilda, don’t my verses mean anything to you?” 

“I like your rhymes very much—I have often won¬ 
dered how you could think of all those rhymes—” 


138 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


He was beside himself. So that was all his verses 
meant to her. They were well rhymed! They were 
mere beads strung on a string—not even a rosary! 

“Why did you not write to me?—why didn’t you at 
least acknowledge the receipt of my poems?” There 
was a cry of humiliation in his voice- 

She was silent for a moment. She knitted her brows 
as if studying how to put her thoughts into words. Then 
her face darkened; animation suddenly leaped into her 
sea-green eyes. 

“And I have thought of you every moment,” he con¬ 
tinued in a plaintive, reproachful tone, “and dreamed of 
you—and day-dreamed of you—”There was a spiteful 
smile around his lips as he added, “In my day-dreaming 
you could not shun me—you couldn’t push me away. 
You see, there is some advantage in being an imaginative 
poet even though you despise him—” 

The color was rising in her face, her breast heaved 
His words were like the suggestive passages in the novels 
she was forbidden to read but which she had read clan¬ 
destinely. 

“You must not say these things to me,” she presently 
said, catching her breath, her cheeks burning. 

“Why shouldn’t I ? I love you- I do not care who 
knows it. I lie awake in the darkness of my room vis¬ 
ualizing your presence close to me. You can’t forbid 
my loving you—” 

There were unshed tears in his half-closed eyes. 
There were tears in his voice. It was his vision, his 
words of despair, that brought the tears. 

“How can you talk this way, Albert.” 

Her voice was soft, caressing; there was tenderness 
—a soothing tenderness—in the manner she pronounced 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


139 


his name. “You know, it is—” she paused as if she 
could not utter what was in her mind—“You know 
it’s impossible—” 

“Why impossible ?” His voice changed quickly and 
he spoke rapidly, impulsively. “Impossible because I 
am a poor poet, because I have no gold to offer you, 
because—” He checked himself. 

She was pensively silent, which gave him hope. On 
their way to the house she seemed more solicitous 
about the things that interested him. 

That evening Aunt Betty was more demonstrative 
in her hospitality to him. She prevailed upon him to 
stay a few days longer, and he saw in this, too, a 
hopeful sign. He saw connection between her attitude 
and his talk with Hilda. 

He spent a hilarious evening. He was his old self 
again, the loveable, witty boy whom the family had met 
in Gunsdorf a few years ago. Before he went to bed 
he wrote letters home. One to his mother, telling her 
of the wonderful time he was having at Uncle Leo¬ 
pold’s villa, and begging her to thank Aunt Betty for 
her many kindnesses to him; another to his sister, 
in which he guardedly told her of Hilda’s beauty and 
loveliness; and still another to his devoted friend, Chris¬ 
tian Lutz. To him he poured out his whole heart. 
He told him of his great passion for Hilda, of the 
unmistakable signs of reciprocity, of his great happi¬ 
ness. 

“Tell it not in Gath,” he wound up his letter in Bib¬ 
lical phraseology, “I am in love—madly in ove. As 
the lily is among the thorns, so is my beloved among 
the daughters of Hamburg. Her lips are like a thread 
of scarlet and her neck—no, it is not like the tower 


140 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


David budded for an armory; it is white and firm* 
neither long nor short, a slender pedestal for the 
prettiest Grecian head. I charge you, ye son of Guns- 
dorf, by the roses of Sharon, by the lilies of the 
valley, that ye stir not my love till she pleases. Chris¬ 
tian, dear, I feel like a drunken god intoxicated with 
the elixir of love, bidding all the angels of the heavenly 
choir to join me in singing ‘Hallelujah’. Hamburg 
does not seem as sordid as it did at first. If my 
present spirit continues I may even learn to love the 
sons of Hammonia. But don’t grow jealous. I shall 
never stop loving my Christian. You were my first 
love. 

“Yes, my good Christian, I feel like a good natured, 
maudlin sot, bursting with song. I should like to fling 
my arms around everybody’s neck and shower kisses 
upon every one in sight. I should like to hug the whole 
universe and bedew it with my tears of joy. For I 
have good reason to believe Hilda loves me.” 


VIII. 

He left more than elated. Unlike on the occasion 
of his first visit Hilda now treated him with manifest 
kindness. On the morning of his departure she let 
him kiss her hand without protest and he gazed into 
her calm clear eyes without embarrassment. 

On his way back to the city he recalled every little 
incident, raked up every triviality—symptoms of her 
love, he called them—and with all the inductions and 
deductions of logic adduced conclusively that Hilda 
was as much in love with him as he was with her. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


141 


There was a mishap on the way. An axle broke and 
delayed the homeward journey several hours. The 
accident did not disturb him. He rather welcomed it. 
He was alone and while the driver went to the nearest 
village to get the axle repaired Albert stretched himself 
at the edge of a field of ripening grain and watched 
the colorful patches in the sky. In spots the clouds 
seemed piled upon one another, a heap of them, with 
protruding ends trimmed with saffron and jade, and 
some were like huge rugged castles, with many turrets. 
Soon his eyes were fixed upon one to the left. It 
was a long stretch of watery green with a number 
of peaks and lower down there appeared to be a row of 
windows. Yes, it looked like his uncle's villa. In the 
foreground was the broad terrace, back of it the long 
doors and French windows, and farther back, higher 
up, was the roof. The last window to the right be¬ 
longed to Hilda’s room. He gazed upon it intently and 
was conscious of a peculiar pleasurable feeling. And 
there, farther down, near the horizon was a cloud in 
the shape of the marble well, with sphinxes engraved 
on the side, and those streaks of light were like the 
poplars along the path leading to the beach. For a 
moment he was superstitious. That was a sign from 
heaven. He saw good omens in everything about him. 
A lark was rising, trilling short, sweet notes in his 
flight toward the clouds. The lark was himself. 

Two young peasant women were walking past him, 
with scythes and sickles slung over their shoulders. 
They were barefooted, bareheaded, with short skirts of 
unbleached linen and loose shirts that looked like 
blouses. They glanced at him lying on his back, then 
looked at each other, and burst out laughing. The 


142 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


older one said something to the younger of the two 
who answered with a resounding slap on the older one’s 
back, and they both roared with laughter once more. 
He was conjuring up the image of Hilda when the last 
peal of laughter broke the spell. He looked around. 
The peasant girls halted in the adjoining field for work. 

Sfton they began to sing a peasant love song. Al¬ 
bert sat up and could see their movements through the 
ripe grain stalks in front of him—their coarse sunburnt 
faces, their .naked feet with their splaying toes—their 
sickles making rhythmical music as they swished against 
the falling grain. He was vexed with himself for 
watching them—for permitting his thoughts to dwell 
upon them. He felt it a sacrilege to think of them 
and Hilda at the same time. Presently Hilda's image 
faded, the clouds in the sky were nothing but meaning¬ 
less vapor, and the blood in his heart was surging 
rapidly. He shuddered. He could not take his eyes 
off the stooped peasant girl, the younger one, who was 
only a hundred yards away from him. Ugly thoughts 
raced through his brain. Strange appetites stirred with¬ 
in him. He would dismiss them but he could not. 
She was singing a love song; and presently the other 
joined in. They were singing a peasant harvest song, 
laughing at the same time— 

“Bduerlein, Bauerlein, tick! tick! tack! 

Ei, wie ist denn der Geschmack 
Von dem Korn and von dem Kem, 

Dass ich’s unterscheiden lern*? 

Bduerlein, Bauerlein , spricht and laejit, 

Finklein ninim dich nur in acht , 

Dass ich, wenn ich dresett and klopf 
Dich nicht treff , aul deinen KopfT 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


143 


It was the younger of the two that was singing in 
a mimicking voice, the older one humming after her. 
The younger one was a girl of about seventeen—the 
same age as Hilda—but was sturdier, her neck was like 
“the tower of David builded for an armory,” her squint¬ 
ing eyes full of mischief. 

He would not lie to himself; a power more over¬ 
whelming was drawing him to that peasant girl with 
the sickle, every movement of hers was another tug 
at his passions . . . 

He rose to his feet and stretched himself. The sun 
was hot and the air was dry and the peasant girl— 
she had just straightened a bit, with the sickle in hand, 
brushing a few strands of hair from her face, and 
was about to bend dolwn again when she caught his 
eye. She glanced at him slyly with her squinting eyes. 
Her companion was now at the other end of the field 
working industriously. Albert looked at her boldly, 
the blood in his heart pumping furiously . . . 

The driver with the axle appeared in the distance. 
Albert shrank a step, trembling in every limb. He 
again threw himself on the ground. He would not be 
caught by the driver looking at the reaper. An unde- 
finable shyness seized him. Lying on his belly, his 
head slightly raised, he was awaiting the approaching 
driver. He soon heard his footsteps in the distance— 
slow, deliberate steps coming nearer. The footsteps 
suddenly halted. Albert saw the driver near the 
reaper. He heard voices, low voices, of the driver 
and the girl. 

“I'll cut you—look out. I’ll cut you.” 

It was the girl’s voice he heard. Albert peered 
through the stalks of grain, he saw without being seen, 


144 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


his blood rushing to his head. He heard a chuckle, 
the sickle dropped from her hand. She feigned to 
cry for help but in a voice he could scarcely hear; 
the other reaper worked steadily on at the other end 
of the field. The driver and the peasant girl were now 
hidden in the tall grain . . . 

The driver soaln returned to his horses, grazing by 
the wayside. He was a stocky man in the early thirties, 
with a red face and a forehead bloodlessly white from 
the pressure of his cap. His face was now of a deeper 
red, his eyes seemed bloodshot, and he was panting. 

He busied himself with the cart. 

“Oh, but she is strong,” he said, half to himself. 
Albert was watching the driver adjust the axle. 

“Who is she?” asked Albert. 

“Do I know? From the neighborhood!” 

He emitted a little laugh and proceeded with his 
work. 

Presently he and the driver were in the cart, the 
wheels creaking, the horses plodding along the rOad. 

The peasant girl waved her sickle, the driver waved 
his whip, the horse started off at a livelier trot in a 
cloud of dust. 

Albert leaned back in his seat, lost in thought. He 
was puzzled. He knew the driver had a wife and five 
children, yet passing a girl he had never seen before 
and desiring her he made her his without courting, 
without brooding, without dreaming and musing, with¬ 
out being troubled about the scheme of things. They 
loved, they hated, they killed (if their king told them 
to) and begot others like themselves. 

He looked at the driver as if he had beheld him for 
the first time. The peasant’s face was now calm, its 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


145 


natural red, his bluish eyes had cleared; they were no 
longer bloodshot; he was looking blankly in front of 
him, with whip in hand, was looking over the horse’s 
head. He had evidently forgotten about the reaper. 
She was no more to him than the field of rye in which 
she worked, no more than the bread he had eaten that 
morning, the glass of beer he had drunk the day before. 

Albert’s heart was filled with envy, envy of the 
peasant. He envied him because he was so unlike him¬ 
self, always thinking, always speculating on what was 
right and what was wrong. Albert wondered if he 
could make a peasant of himself and stop thinking and 
brooding. His thoughts drifted, he thought of Elfen- 
bein, of Rudolph, of the chattering Hirsch and of 
scores of other men and women he knew. None of 
them were like the driver, and he could not be like 
any of them either. He thought o*f his uncle—a 
shrewd banker, a charitable man, a noble soul—no, he 
could not be like him either. He thought of his own 
father—kind and weak and listless—no, he was dif¬ 
ferent. A flock of migrating birds were over his head 
—a path o'f black dots against the blue sky; a cow 
by the wayside stretched her broad neck, parted her 
jaws, and emitted a hoarse “moo—oo!” The woods 
in the distance answered “Moo—oo V *; the horse 
clinked his hodfs against a chance stone in the sandv 
road . . . 

Without knowing why, Albert’s heart was filled with 
sadness. He sighed audibly. He was depressed be¬ 
cause he was unlike anybody and because he knew he 
could not be like anybody else. God had made him 
different, had made him a misfit, a round peg in a 
square hole. His thoughts wandered. No, he did not 


146 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


wish to be like anybody else. Yet he was vexed. He 
felt dreadfully alone. Had he not been afraid of the 
driver’s ridicule he would have wept aloud—because— 
because he was unlike anyone and did not want to 
be like anyone else. If only Hilda had loved him! 
It suddenly flashed upon his mind that she did not 
love him. 


IX. 

But the next week he was again hopeful, even con¬ 
fident, of Hilda’s love. He had written to her and 
she had answered him. Rejoicing! 

His hopes were rising quickly. If only he could make 
her appreciate his poems! He felt that she disliked 
his verses. She did not seem to understand that the 
poems he had shown her were inspired by her and 
were meant for her eyes alone. 

One day he felt the fateful moment had come. He 
was again at his uncle’s villa. It was early October, 
the family was preparing to leave for their city home. 
It was a gloomy day, gray clouds in the sky, winds 
chasing withered leaves against tree trunks and fences. 
Yet there was joy in his heart. Hilda had praised one 
of his poems. He hung upon her words as if they had 
emanated from the lips df the greatest critic. 

“If you only knew how many more beautiful poems 
you could inspire me to write,” he was saying enthusi¬ 
astically, with plaintive begging in his voice. 

“How?” 

She said this absently, between two numbers of em¬ 
broidery stitches she was counting 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


147 


“By promising that you’ll marry me some day.” 

She seemed caught unawares. She dropped a few 
stitches and seemed annoyed. 

Her head moved from side to side without looking 
up. She seemed very busy with her needle. 

“Can’t you even give me hope—in the distant fu¬ 
ture?” 

The color in her cheek was rising. 

“You mustn’t think of me, Albert,” she said, without 
raising her eyes. “It’s impossible.” The last few words 
were spoken under her breath, scarcely audible. 

Silence. He did not plead, he made no attempt at 
persuasion. There was the finality of death in her 
tone. 

He returned to the city in a state of utter hopeless¬ 
ness. Conquest was denied everywhere. 

He imputed to her a thousand motives for repecting 
him; he blamed his uncle; he saw his aunt at the bot¬ 
tom of it. His sorrow deepened as the days passed. 
He sat in his room and brooded and then wandered 
through the streets like a restless vagrant. He was 
telling himself he would never survive this blow, and 
out of his poignant pain and the anguish of his soul 
sprang verses of despair. 

His agony had become unendurable. Nothing mat¬ 
tered now. He did not care whether he pleased his 
uncle; he did not care whether he stayed at the bank 
or was dismissed. His sorrow was unbearable. He 
had to talk to some one about it. He finally unbosomed 
himself to his friend, Christian. It was nearly mid¬ 
night, his tallow candle sputtering. 


148 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


X. 

Having finished the letter he left his room. He 
meant to take a stroll, as he often did late at) night 
when despair seized him. 

On his way out, Frau Rodbertus greeted him cheerily, 
“Guten Abend.” 

“Guten Abend ” he returned sulkily, and was about 
to pass her. 

“Bon soir,” another voice called. 

He paused. He recognized the voice of Eugenie 
Chauraux, the girl of whom he had caught a glimpse 
on the first day of his arrival here. He had since met 
her a number of times. She was a frequent visitor 
at Frau Rodbertus’. He had often admired her lu¬ 
minous brown eyes and black hair and her beautiful 
hands. Her hands particularly attracted him. They 
were not small but owing to her long fingers they 
seemed like small palm leaves, and they appeared pe¬ 
culiarly soothing when shaking hands with her; in 
spite of her warm clasp her hand was cooling. 

Eugenie always talked French to him. She had told 
him she was glad to find one who spoke her native 
tongue so well and that she detested the French spoken 
by most Germans. Albert was not averse to flattery. 
He had often remained chatting with her while the 
sly widow would steal out of the room and leave ‘‘the 
children” alone. Frau Rodbertus was childless and 
was very fond of Eugenie. She was also fond of her 
lodger. She mothered him, and he liked to be mothered. 
She would frequently scold him for his peevishness 
in a gentle, motherly tone and would cater to his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


149 


whims. At times he would act towards her as if she 
were his mother. If his handkerchiefs were not easily 
found in the proper place, or when he forgot to send 
his linen to the washerwoman, or if an expected letter 
had not come, he would storm like a spoiled child as if 
Frau Rodbertus were to blame, and she would laugh 
or scold him with maternal good nature. 

She was sentimental, and when she learned that 
Albert wrote poetry she became even more solicitous 
and obliging. She had the tenderness and delicacy of 
a French woman. Her voice was soft, almost sooth¬ 
ing, and when she would pucker her lips and turn upon 
him her large dark eyes he would at once become docile. 
And while he had determined to keep his poetic as¬ 
pirations to himself—he had been warned by his uncle 
that publicity of this fact might hurt him in his stand¬ 
ing as a young business man—he frequently forgot his 
resolution and spoke of his Lieder to her. He even re¬ 
cited some of them to her. He had found in her an 
enthusiastic audience, almost as enthusiastic as Chris¬ 
tian. And though he had abjured her not to divulge 
his secret he knew that she had spoken of his verses 
to Eugenie. The girl never made mention of it but 
he felt that she knew. 

“Bon soir, Mademoiselle he said to Eugenie and 
was about to proceed. 

Eugenie’s face was turned upwards, the candle light 
through the open door catching the light of her eyes. 
Albert hesitated in his step. 

“It's too hot to walk, Herr Zorn” said Frau Rod¬ 
bertus. 

“Just for a stroll and then to bed.” 


150 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

“It’s too early for bed/’ Frau Rodbertus said laugh¬ 
ingly. 

Eugenie's eyes were upon him. 

Albert sat down on the threshold next to Eugenie. 

After a space Frau Rodbertus asked Eugenie to 
play something. 

“It’s terribly hot, and too late” pleaded Eugenie. 

“It is never too hot nor too late for music,” coaxed 
Frau Rodbertus. 

When Albert joined in the request, Eugenie rose 
promptly and in rising supported her palm against 
Albert’s knee. He was pleasantly conscious of the 
contact of her hand. As he rose to follow her into the 
house his erstwhile loneliness was robbed of its sad¬ 
ness. Without analyzing himself he felt the genial 
warmth of these two as contrasted to the frigid kind¬ 
ness of his relatives. The former were human, stripped 
of all artifice, the latter formal, studied, cultivated. 

Albert had no trained ear for music but his knowl¬ 
edge of melody, like all knowledge that came to him, 
was intuitive. And although his preference for music 
was limited to vocal and the violin—the stacatto- 
like notes of the piano never appealed to him—he had 
a keen appreciation of all music. 

Eugenie played with feeling, her slender body sway¬ 
ing with the rhythm of the music, casting a shadow in 
the room which was brightened by only one candle. 
Albert found himself making mental notes of every¬ 
thing about her. Her body swayed with the pliancy 
of a sapling. The irregular features of her face 
blended into a harmony of their own. Her fine eye¬ 
brows sloped at the ends abruptly like Japanese eyes, 
her nose rather narrow which made it seem longer than 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


151 


it was, and the middle of her upper lip protruded like 
a half opened bud. When she opened her mouth it 
was the upper lip that rose with a sudden jerk upward, 
disclosing longish white teeth. Her laughter—for her 
faintest smile was a musical laugh—was confined to 
her eyes ; sparks of sunshine danced in the iris. 

He soon forgot all about his vexing thoughts. He 
had no thoughts. Seated indolently, with eyes almost 
closed, he yielded to the pleasure of the moment. 
He was half-dreaming, the music but vague, distant 
echoes in his ears. And Eugenie played selection after 
selection, without being urged, without even being 
asked. She seemed eager to play, to go on with the 
galloping of her emotions, like a frightened horse that 
goes tearing wildly through the streets. She never 
turned her eyes either way but sat bent over the keys, 
breathing fast as she played. 

Frau Rodbertus, her arms folded, watched the girl’s 
glowing cheeks. She understood Eugenie. She had 
not yet forgotten her own youth, and those heavenly 
moments when one’s blood courses like sparkling Bur¬ 
gundy. She sat in the shadow, sat and sighed softly 
as she remembered those blissful moments of her own 
life, never, never to come back. No, she was not 
envious. The profligate liberality of the drunkard was 
in her heart. She soon tiptoed out of the room and 
into the court-yard, unnoticed by either Eugenie or 
Albert, and when the last note had died away, she 
breathed softly, her very being in suspense. 

Eugenie at last rose from the piano and stretched 
her arms as if she were alone in the room. She barely 
looked in Albert’s direction. 

“You play beautifully,” he murmured. 


152 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


She remained standing in the darkened part of the 
room, beyond the circle of the dim candle-light, her 
fingers clasped in front of her, without moving. 

He made another remark but that, too, remained 
unanswered. A few more silent moments. Neither 
moved. Albert was watching her silhouette, astir with 
semi-conscious feelings. 

She soon passed him silently, her dress barely brush¬ 
ing his clothes. He rose and followed her in silence. 
Frau Rodbertus was not outside. The little courtyard 
was deserted—nothing but the lonely pine-tree in the 
centre casting an almost invisible shadow in the dark¬ 
ness. Not a sound anywhere. A voice from the 
street accentuated the stillness of the enclosed court¬ 
yard. 

Eugenie re-seated herself on the door-step and Albert 
followed her example as if he were mimicking her. 
They heard footsteps inside the house, through the 
open door,—the soft, pattering, slippered footsteps 
of Frau Rodbertus—and soon the glimmer of the can¬ 
dle-light was gone. 

Albert became more conscious of Eugenie’s nearness, 
of the torpid heat, of the intense darkness. Presently 
his eyes penetrated the darkness and he saw the out¬ 
line of Eugenie’s face, loose strands of her hair break¬ 
ing the curved fines. They sat for a few moments 
like bashful children brought together for the first 
time and left alone. 

“It’s getting late—I must go home,’’ she soon said 
and rose abruptly. 

He became conscious of his heart-beats. He did not 
rise. Something checked his voice. 

She went into the house and he heard her calling 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


153 


“Good night” to Frau Rodbertus, who answered that 
she was coming down to accompany her home. 

Albert jumped up and said he would see her home. 
Eugenie rushed up the stairs and some words were 
exchanged between her and Frau Rodbertus and she 
soon came down and accepted his proferred escort. 

They walked through the courtyard gate silently. 
He wished to touch her arm, to help her across the 
step of the portal, but he was keenly conscious of dif¬ 
fidence and barely touched her elbow, quickly letting 
it go. 

He grew more loquacious after they had covered 
some distance. He was telling her how much he ad¬ 
mired the French and that he had loved them from 
his early childhood. 

“My father hates the Germans,” said she with a ner¬ 
vous laugh. “He would like to go back to France but 
mother died last year and he has many debts in the 
city. As soon as he pays his obligations we’ll go back 
home.” 

Albert insisted that one must hate no one. 

“But you can’t love everybody.” 

He agreed that one could not love everybody. 

They were now passing through a main thoroughfare, 
encountering more pedestrians. 

li Guten Abend , Herr Zorn ,” a cordial voice addressed 
Albert. 

He turned and saw little Aaron Hirsch, accompanied 
by his lean little wife. Aaron was walking in front, 
his hands behind, letting his gnarled cane drag over 
the sidewalk, his wife lagging half a step behind. 

On his return home Albert made no light. He liked 
the darkness. His headache was gone, his bitterness 


154 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


departed, but he was sleepless. Eugenie’s presence 
had filled him with a pacifying joy. Something had 
stimulated him without irritation. 

He soon found himself comparing Eugenie with 
Hilda and the difference in the atmosphere of their 
respective presences. Hilda was German, German to 
the core in spite of her Semitic blood. Her keen 
sense of caste, her haughty manner because of her 
father’s wealth, her materialistic outlook upon life, 
her lack of self-abandon—all the well-defined traits of 
the wealthy German, were easily discernible in her. 
Abert felt all this as he contemplated his beloved, 
and yet he was drawn to her. But her attraction for 
him was tantalizing, and made him restive, while that of 
Eugenie was free from this. Eugenie’s presence filled 
him with a pacifying joy, without irritation; it made 
him conscious of her charm without combative influ¬ 
ences. He vaguely wondered if a man could love two 
women at the same time. Why not? One could love 
two children with the same devotion at the same time. 
And then one unexpectedly domes across an exotic 
flower—with the perfume and color of the tropics—and 
yet loves none the less the rose and the lily. If one loves 
the rose is there any reason why he could not at the same 
time love the lily? As he prepared to retire a fugitive 
memory flitted across his brain. Eugenie had said some¬ 
thing about blue eyes. He was conscious of disappoint¬ 
ment. For while his eyes appeared blue they were really 
greenish. He wondered if Eugenie was equally fond of 
greenish eyes. 

When he was in bed, lapsing into sleep, Eugenie’s 
face was before him, and he remembered her laugh. 
Hilda never laughed so freely, so whole-heartedly; there 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


155 


was always restraint in her laughter as there was re¬ 
straint felt in everything about her. He thought of 
warbling of a canary, the voice flowing joyously in¬ 
to the air. And he also liked the dancing sunshine 
in her eyes when she laughed. Every time her upper 
lip rose he felt a strong desire to kiss her on the 
mouth. And that hand of hers—those long, soft, cool, 
yet clinging, fingers! His last semi-conscious thought 
was of those clinging fingers . . . 


XI. 

“That was a pretty girl you walked with last even¬ 
ing,” Aaron Hirsch remarked, and, rolling his large 
gray eyes, emitted a cackle, “It takes a poet to know 
what is what—hey?” 

This magpie repeated the same remark to Albert’s 
“esteemed uncle.” He only phrased it a little dif¬ 
ferently. 

“Your esteemed nephew is rapidly learning the 
ways of Hamburg,” Aaron said to the banker, with a 
cringing, ingratiating laugh. “If you had seen him 
stroll along Beckerstrasse with a brunette on his arm 
you would have imagined him a born Hamburger.” 

Leopold Zorn grew angry and sent Aaron about his 
business. A few minutes later he called him back. 

“I meant no harm, Herr Banquier,” Aaron was 
making obsequious apologies. “May the Lord so help 
me, I meant no offense to your esteemed nephew. Far 
be it from me to even hint at any offense to the most 
remote relative of my benefactor. No, indeed. The 


156 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


girl he walked with was no hussy on the Jungfernstieg. 
She is a most respectable girl. That she is, Herr 
Banquier; I happen to know her father. I sold him 
a lottery ticket last year and he won fifty marks at the 
first drawing. A very honorable man is M’sieu Cha- 
raux—a relative of the widow Rodbertus—a very fine 
woman with whom your esteemed nephew is lodging. 
Indeed, the girl is a real lady—what people in your 
high social station would call a Mademoiselle. You 
need have no fear about your esteemed nephew—no, 
indeed; I keep my eye on him all the time. Blood 
certainly will tell. He is a well-behaved young man— 
a chip off the old block, as the saying goes.” 

Admonishing Aaron not to discuss his nephew, the 
banker told him to keep his eye on the young man. 

“That I will, sir,” Hirsch assured his patron. 

XII. 

Opening the door of his lodging a few days later 
Albert noticed Eugenie talking with Frau Rodbertus. 
They were in the little parlor. He wondered what 
they were always talking about, this young girl and 
that middle aged woman. He wished to walk past 
them, up the stairs, to his room, but the parlor door 
was open and he could not pass unnoticed. Besides, 
he was lonesome and liked to talk to them—to Eugenie. 
There was something about her that always caused his 
lonesomeness to disappear. With her he felt at home. 
She made him forget Hilda. 

Eugenie was seated close to Frau Rodbertus, lean¬ 
ing affectionately against the older woman, the candle 
light flickering on a table close by. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


157 


They soon laughingly began to talk of love. Albert 
called it a malady, which, he declared, was in some 
cases incurable. The widow laughed indulgently, with 
the tolerance of older people for the sweet nonsense 
of the young. Eugenie’s eyes were serious and she 
vouchsafed no comment. 

Frau Rodbertus was to have escorted Eugenie home 
but Albert would not hear of it. 

He took Eugenie’s arm carelessly, without any timidi¬ 
ty, without even feeling the tremor of her arm as he 
touched it. Eugenie was silent as they walked through 
the dark quiet streets. Presently her hand touched 
his, and he clasped it, feeling the fingers moist and 
cool, and he playfully straightened her fingers one by 
one without resistance from her. Her fingers were 
slender and soft, and he was conscious of a strong 
desire to carry them to his lips. 

She did not permit him to take her all the way 
home. “You know my father is very strict and would 
be horrified if he knew I allowed you to walk home 
with me in the evening.” 

They stopped a few doors from her house. She lived 
in a dark narrow street devoid of street lamps. 

“You are so sympathetic,” he was saying to her, re¬ 
ferring to her attitude rather than her words. She 
had extended her hand to him but he was in no haste 
to part. He could see her eyes in the dark. They were 
fixed upon his face sympathetically, and they were 
so close to each other. 

Suddenly—he never could recall how it came about 
—his hands began to creep along her arms—they crept 
slowly, barely touching her sleeves, from the wrists 
upward—until the tips of his sensitive fingers felt the 


/ 


158 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

contact of her slender shoulders—he felt their smooth 
roundness, the yielding softness of the velvet gar¬ 
ment over them—and then his arms entwined her. 
When their lips met she caught her breath with an in¬ 
voluntary little gasp—half sob, half cry, and clung to 
him grippingly for a moment but soon rested in his 
arms, scarcely breathing, with the stillness of death. 
For a bare second he was frightened. He could not 
hear her breathe. 

“Eugenie,” he whispered. He now held her at arm’s 
length and peered into her face, but it was so dark 
that he could only see her dilated eyes. She was just 
staring at him, mystified at the first kiss from a man’s 
lips. “Eugenie,” he whispered again, but he only heard 
her catching her breath in response. He bent forward 
and kissed her moist slender fingers and bade her good 
night. Her fingers clung to him as they parted, almost 
drawing him back. “Good night,” he repeated. Her 
reply was no louder than her breathing. 

They parted. 

He walked away a few steps, turned around, and 
halted. He saw a shadow moving toward her house. 
When he saw the door open he walked away as fast 
as his legs could carry him, as if he were speeding 
away from a scene of crime. He also entered his 
room stealthily. And when in bed he tried to under¬ 
stand what had happened. It all seemed like a dream. 
He tried to persuade himself it was a dream. He was 
in love with Hilda. He was sure Hilda was the only 
one he loved. Then his mind recalled the scene of the 
reapers. Was he like the driver, that beast-like peasant? 
He sighed. He found himself pitying Eugenie—that 
sweet, gentle, trusting Eugenie—and despising himself. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


159 


He hated himself. His eye-lids were soon wet with 
tears, an unbearable pain in his breast. The thought 
of Eugenie wrung his heart; it gnawed at his brain. 
Albert was easily given to tears, and they now flowed 
freely. He wept for Eugenie. She was so pure, so 
beautiful, so tender, so sympathetic, and he treated 
her as if—as if she were a reaper in the fields! 

What was pounding in his ears so clamorously? 
The dashing waves by the sea . . . the driver Was kis¬ 
sing Hilda . . . What surprised him was that the sight 
did not shock him and he looked on and laughed; he 
was not even jealous; there was no resentment in his 
heart. He laughed and told Frau Rodbertus not to 
mind it—Frau Rodbertus, in her long gown and slip¬ 
pers, was seated in his lap and calling him sweet¬ 
heart, and he was married to the widow ... As he 
was trying to recall when he had married her Hilda 
and Eugenie came in, arm in arm. But how they 
were dressed! Barefooted, with short skirts of un¬ 
bleached linen and loose blouses, like the reapers; and 
then Uncle Leopold—it was Uncle Leopold but he wore 
a beard like Aaron Hirsch—rushed in and waved a 
stick at him—the stick looked like an axle . . . 

He stirred and said to himself he did not know 
why he could not fall asleep, then stirred again, 
opened his eyes and beheld day-light. He leaned out 
of bed, reached for his watch on a chair close by, and 
jumped out. He had overslept. 

XIII. 

Eugenie's image persisted in intruding upon him. 
In fact, he found himself thinking more of Eugenie 


160 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


than of Hilda; there was more tenderness in his heart 
when thinking of Eugenie than when thinking of 
Hilda. And every time he glanced at that omnipresent 
Aaron Hirsch—Aaron Hirsch had again seen him with 
Eugenie—he thought of Eugenie. Aaron had said 
nothing to him about her but he could read something 
in his rolling, roguish eyes. While copying entries in¬ 
to the ledger he did it mechanically, his mind wander¬ 
ing in other regions. He was visualizing those sweet 
moments with Eugenie in the dark street and experi¬ 
encing the sensation over again. 

A few days later Albert was summoned to his 
uncle’s private room. Albert was in a grave mood 
because of the return of a few poems which he had 
sent to an editor at Munich. 

He found Uncle Leopold at his secretary, austere 
and domineering. 

“Take a seat.” He said this in a commanding tone. 

Albert sat down, feeling the worthlessness of life 
more keenly. 

“I have something of the gravest importance to say 
to you,” Uncle Leopold commenced, his eyes averted. 
He then paused. 

Albert caught his breath and waited. 

“It's about your general conduct,” he snapped. 
“They tell me awful things about you.” 

“I’ll try to be careful about my work in the bank,” 
Albert said contritely. For the moment Albert’s pride 
was gone. His pride would always sink with the re¬ 
jection of his manuscripts. 

“I don’t care so much about your work,” the banker 
said with an irritable wave of his hand. “These mis¬ 
takes can be corrected. It’s your life mistakes. No 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


161 


one but yourself can correct those/' 

The banker again paused. Albert looked at his 
uncle puzzled. He could not fathom the cause of the 
present complaint. 

“You have been seen in bad company,” the banker 
resumed in a more serious tone. “The nephew of 
Leopold Zorn must not bee seen running around with 
dissolute women.” 

“Uncle Leopold—that's not true—it’s a base false¬ 
hood—I have kept company with no bad women—” he 
burst out indignantly, tears springing to his eyes. 
“Some one has been slandering me. I spend all my 
evenings reading and writing, save for a stroll now and 
then—someone has been lying to you.” 

“No, the source of this information is quite reliable,” 
the banker continued in a milder tone, the tears in his 
nephew’s eyes instantly softening his feelings. “You 
were seen on Bleicherstrasse with a girl of questionable 
character.” 

“That's false, Uncle Leopold . . utterly false . . ” 
tears stifled his speech. 

He then remembered Eugenie and felt he had to 
defend her honor. 

“I have never associated with any women here ex¬ 
cept with one of the purest souls I have ever known— 
as pure as my own mother—as pure as my sister—as 
p ure —” He was about to add Hilda’s name but 
checked himself. 

“One cannot be too discriminating,” Uncle Leopold 
said in a conciliatory tone, as if willing to let bygones 
be bygones, “but you must be more careful in the fu¬ 
ture. The walls have ears and the streets a thousand 


162 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

eyes. The nephew of Leopold Zorn must avoid'all 
suspicion/’ 

“And the uncle of Albert Zorn ought not to lend ear 
to malicious tongues,” flared up the nephew, rising from 
his seat indignantly. 

The false accusation and the insinuation against Eu¬ 
genie’s character brought back his innate pride. His 
unshakable confidence in himself returned. There was 
insolence on the young man’s face. 

Uncle Leopold caught The sudden change in his 
nephew’s face and smiled. He resented Albert’s im¬ 
pudent manner, but at the same time admired the young 
man’s fearlessness. He remembered the letter his 
wife had received from Albert in which he thanked 
her for her hospitality. Aunt Betty had expressed 
great admiration for the style of his language. 

When the interview was over the banker rose from 
his seat and escorted Albert out of the door, his hand 
resting kindly on the young man’s shoulder. 


EUGENIE 


I. 

D REARY months followed. Aside from the 
great disappointment the climate contributed 
to his misery. The damp autumn, the cold 
early winter days, the northern winds were not to his 
taste. He was a child of sunshine, not a child of the 
mild sunshine of the Acropolis, as he thought he was, 
but of the burning rays baking the plains of Jehoso- 
phat, and the scorching heat of Jericho. Protest though 
he might, he was a child of Canaan. And everything 
around him was bleak and cold and dismal, and his 
heart was burning with a fire of its own, the blood 
in his veins seething tumultuously. He wrote much 
to give expression to his turbulent thoughts, walked 
much to dissipate his restlessness, and people called him 
an idler, a GassenjiMge! He did not care. He shunned 
people. He only wished to be a spectator of the passing 
show of life, and when the procession provoked laugh¬ 
ter in him he laughed with the tears rolling down 
his cheeks. For there was pity in his laughter, but 
those around him only heard the laughter with no ear 
for the pitiful undertone. 

Albert always hated Prussianism—he had learned to 
163 


164 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


hate it in his childhood—and Prussianism was the spir¬ 
it of Hamburg of that day. Brought up in a Rhenish 
town under French occupation it was inevitable that a 
boy with such keen sensibilities should perceive the 
difference between Prussian ponderousness and vul¬ 
garity and French sprightliness and delicacy. His 
present environment brought back to him his earlier 
perceptions. 

Albert found himself pondering on Goethe and Les¬ 
sing. In Goethe he saw the Spinoza of poetry. He 
understood what Herder meant when he said, “I wish 
that Goethe would for once take some other Latin book 
in hand besides that of Spinoza/' 

The more he pondered on Goethe and Lessing and 
Spinoza the more he revolted against the Philistinism 
of his environment. His unrequited love added bitter¬ 
ness. He saw the faults of the people around him 
with the eyes of an enemy. 

And there was hatred all around him. Lessing’s 
preachments against hatred had made no impression 
upon his people. Indeed, they had erected monuments 
to his memory but went on hating more than ever. 
They wanted none of Lessing’s tolerance, none of the 
Pantheistic harmony of Goethe. They wanted strife. 
Not the strife that begets liberty—liberty of mind and 
body—but the strife that begets religious bigotry. Al¬ 
bert wanted to continue, and combine, the noble work 
of Lessing and Goethe. He wanted to teach his coun¬ 
trymen the truth of Lessing and the harmony of 
Goethe, but he was as yet too young to know that 
the reward for such efforts are loose stones during 
one's life and stones cemented into the shape of a 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


165 


monument when loose stones can no longer do any 
harm. 

He found himself like a nightingale in a crow's 
nest. Every time he began to sing the crows caw- 
cawed; and the masses have always understood the 
caw-caw better than the song of the nightingale. 

He was no philosopher content with metaphysical 
speculations. He was no Spinoza to be content to 
grind lenses and subsist on a penny’s worth of Dutch 
bread and raisins. Unlike the philosopher’s passion for 
abstract truth, truth was meaningless to Albert unless il 
colored human life. His asceticism was not that of 
the monk wilfully denying himself the pleasures of the 
body but rather that of the pleasure-seeking maiden who 
silently broods in her chamber because she was left 
out of a festivity. The world to him was a playground, 
and he wished to do part of the playing. 

Of late he had tried to get his first poems published 
in book form but the publishers could see no merit in 
them. The verses were too simple to strike the pub¬ 
lishers as extraordinary; and though Goethe had given 
them a lesson in simplicity the Germans were still 
too bombastic to appreciate any writing unless tumid. 
Albert felt that as soon as his poems were published 
the world would be at his feet. He had been to see 
a publisher who was specializing in books that pro¬ 
voked the censor, but as yet there was nothing, in 
Albert’s poems to provoke any one except a lovesick 
maiden. 

One day he decided to have his poems published 
at any cost, and show his uncle—and Hilda—that he 
was no mere clerk. But where could he get the 
money ? He only received a salary sufficient for 


166 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


his board and lodgings. Besides, he did not know 
how to economize. He soon thought of the lottery, 
the living hope, and the despair, of his father's exist¬ 
ence. Perhaps he might win—somebody won at every 
drawing! One night he dreamt that he played the lot¬ 
tery and won. He thought this a good omen and the 
following morning gambled away his last Pfennig. 


II. 

Eager to have some of his poems published, and 
finding no publisher to risk his imprint, he sent a few 
verses to Hamburg’s Waechter, a newly founded peri¬ 
odical, whose secret aim was Jew-baiting. 

The editor of this journal, one Karl Trummer, was 
one of those pen-patriots who abound in every land 
in times of great strife and who sell their pens to the 
highest bidder. After every war there is a feeling 
present that the bloodshed was useless, and every fac¬ 
tion blames the other. In spite of Hegel's saying that 
the only thing man learns from history is that he 
learns nothing from history, certain pen-patriots have 
learned that laying the blame at the door of one class 
satisfies all other classes—the same class that bore the 
brunt when wells were poisoned, when the Black Plague 
raged, when famine swept the land, when reason de¬ 
throned the idols of antiquity. The Jew has always 
been an atoning scapegoat. 

Little thinking of the policy of this journal-think¬ 
ing only of having some of his verses appear in print_ 

and though concealing his identity under an ingenious 
pseudonym, the authorship of these ballads was soon 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


167 


learned, and Albert found himself more disliked than 
ever. He was regarded with contempt by the Jews and 
with indifference by his non-Jewish friends. And in 
order to make him feel the sting of their hatred the 
Jews belittled his talents. That Gassenjunge a poet! 
they sneered. His language was so simple that a 
child—“even a maid servant”—could understand it! 
How, really, could one be a poet who could be un¬ 
derstood by everybody? 

Embittered he isolated himself altogether. He was 
in his room night after night, reading, writing, think¬ 
ing. He paid no attention to Dame Gossip and her 
wagging tongue. Too many thoughts crowded his 
brain, too many conflicting opinions. For he read 
books on all sorts of subjects—poetry, philosophy, 
theology, tales, legends—and he never read passively. 
He either praised or condemned. And the books 
he read not only imparted to him the knowledge of the 
authors but, like narcotics, stimulated the intuitive 
knowledge within him. 

When he casually did meet people he voiced his 
convictions too freely. He was still of an age when 
impressions were easily made and for the time they 
seemed indelible. He was impetuous, ardent, argumenta¬ 
tive. He was witty and people liked to listen to him even 
though they hated him for his utterances. And when 
his convictions changed—as the convictions of liberal 
minds and those of sincere purpose must change—he 
gave frank expression to these changes. People called 
him fickle and thought him flippant, failing to realize 
the struggles of a soul in its efforts to adjust itself. 
He was likewise vacillating in his literary attempts. 
Before he fully developed one poetic theme another 


168 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

rushed upon him and he halted the latter for still 
another. 

His presence in the bank had finally become a source 
of annoyance. Martin Elfenbein could hardly contain 
himself. In spite of frequent warnings Albert came 
and went whenever he pleased. Yet, no one dared 
discharge him. 

At last the inevitable happened. He was advised 
that his services were no longer needed in the bank. 
No one was happier than Albert. He was glad to be 
rid of this place, no matter what the outcome might be. 

But before long Uncle Leopold had established his 
nephew in a new business. Albert was conscious of 
his importance when he beheld the sign: 

ALBERT ZORN 
KOMMISSIONGESCHAEFT 

He was now a full fledged merchant, and he could 
come and go as he pleased without being eyed by that 
hateful Martin Elfenbein. And he did not owe a 
Pfennig for his stock of goods. His quick-tempered 
but generous uncle, after reprimanding him for his 
past transgressions, had filled up the shop with 
cloth wares and told him everything was his providing 
he attended to business and managed to replenish the 
shelves with the money taken in. 

The novelty of the thing stimulated his energies 
for a while. Besides, the odor of the bolts of new 
cloth, the color of the chintzes, the haggling of the 
customers amused him. At first everything amused 
him and appealed to his sense of humor. The manners 
and faces of the agents who came to sell goods, the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


169 


people who came to purchase, were an inexhaustible 
source of fun to him. Human faces and figures al¬ 
ways suggested to him various species of animals or 
grotesque subjects. In one he saw the face of an 
airedale, in another that of a rabbit, a bulldog, a calf, 
or some ludicrous physiognomy. The forms of other 
customers seemed to him to resemble numerical figures. 
As a result there was a never-dying smile on his face 
and something akin to mockery in his perpetually nar¬ 
rowed eyes. At times, however, he would forget his 
merchandise and indulge in conversation foreign to 
his business. All sorts of news was afloat in the air 
in those days—strange rumors from France, from Au¬ 
stria, from England and scores of new movements in 
Germany—and Albert gave free reign to his tongue. 
He made comments, coined epigrams, gave expression 
to cynical remarks, which were repeated in the Pavil¬ 
ions and, expatiated upon, were carried to his uncle. 

Leopold Zorn had ordered Aaron Hirsch to keep 
his eye on his incorrigible nephew and make reports 
of the young man’s conduct, and while endeavoring to 
shield Albert, Aaron had “a wife and seven children” 
and had to do his duty. 

Aaron’s reports were not encouraging. Not infre¬ 
quently when Aaron called he found no one at the shop, 
the door unlocked, the proprietor away at the Swiss 
Pavilion. Aaron played pranks upon Albert and car¬ 
ried off numerous articles, which were undetected by 
the owner, until their return by the sly Hirsch. 

What Albert could not understand was the unsolvable 
riddle at the end of six months; he had neither money 
nor merchandise and no one owed him anything! He 
put the problem up to Aaron but instead of explaining 


170 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

the situation Aaron laughed until tears rolled down 
his bearded cheeks. 

“It’s a great mystery/’ Albert said with mock gravity. 
“Perhaps a Kabbalist might be able to bring Elisha 
back to life, and the prophet, who could fill barrels 
of oil from an empty jug, might stretch a yard of 
velveteen into a thousand bolts.” 

When laughter subsided Albert produced a few 
sheets from his breast pocket and read a few of his 
latest verses. 

“Ah! if I could put these on the shelves!” he 
sighed. 


III. 

As most people in sorrow and affliction turn to prayer 
Albert turned to love. He could be without friends, 
he could endure mental anguish, but he could not bear 
life without love. 

Of late many things had troubled him. His father 
was making preparations to leave Gunsdorf and his 
mother’s letters lacked the usual ring of cheer. His 
sister, too, seemed weary of the life in her native 
town and frankly hinted that she would welcome a 
change. He had gradually become estranged from 
Uncle Leopold’s house and from the class of people 
that visited there and shunned all other associations, 
save the dilettantes in the Swiss Pavilions who sat 
all day drinking beer and talking gradiloquently of art 
and literature. But before long he tired of th;ese, too. 
He fathomed their depth. He was lonely and craved 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


171 


affection, and his thoughts turned to Eugenie. He had 
not seen her for some time, as her father had moved 
to a farm about five miles from Hamburg, and her 
visits at Frau Rodbertus’ were rare. He now yearned 
for Eugenie and reproached himself for his neglect of 
her in the past. He knew Eugenie had loved him and 
wondered if she still loved him. 

One summer day he took a stroll on the road between 
Winterlude and Ohlsdorf. Fie was going to find her 
and yet sauntered along the road as if he were just 
walking aimlessly for the sheer pleasure of movement. 
It was a warm day and the road was white with dust. 
A dog barked. Albert turned around and saw a large 
dog harnessed to a small cart, barking as he pulled his 
load. Alongside the cart, on which stood a large empty 
milk can, was a girl, with a kerchief overhead arranged 
in the shape of a hood. The girl turned around when 
the dog began to bark, glanced in Albert’s direction, 
and proceeded on her way. The next moment she 
turned in his direction again and he saw a pair qf 
large brown eyes under the hood-like kerchief. His 
heart fluttered, noisy crickets chattered in a nearby 
field. A bird called from a clump of bushes not far 
off. The muffled beats of flails came from a bam 
close to the roadside. The girl did not turn her head 
but plodded on alongside the little cart. Soon the road 
forked off to the left and the girl turned her head 
again toward him. 

“Eugenie," he called. 

The dog emitted a loud, hollow bark and the empty 
can rattled against the sides of the little cart. 

The girl hesitated, paused, and turned around, the 
dog hurrying ahead of her toward the farmhouse. 


172 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“Eugenie!” 

Albert’s voice was jubilant, ringing with surprise, as 
if the meeting was wholly accidental. 

With a quick movement of her left hand she jerked 
off the handkerchief, facing him with dilated eyes in 
which was a strange light. 

She did not extend her hand to him. 

“Frau Rodbertus had told me you were on a farm,” 
he broke the silence, intimating that it was not chance 
that had brought him here. 

A softer light stole over her face, her protruding 
lip curled upward, disclosing her longish white teeth. 

“I haven’t seen Frau Rodbertus in months,” Eugenie 
said, standing before him with her arms hanging on 
either side of her, the kerchief in her left hand. 

Albert studied her a moment. The freedom of by¬ 
gone days was gone. He felt constraint and sensed 
her constraint. 

The dog had reached the gate of the farmhouse and 
stopped, barking, his head turned in the direction of 
Eugenie. 

“You see, he is scolding me for lagging behind,” 
she said, indulging in a spontaneous smile. 

“He is scolding you for your failure to offer hos¬ 
pitality to the weary wayfarer,” Albert answered in 
kind. 

They both laughed. 

“All wayfarers, weary or otherwise, are welcome at 
our house,” she said, turning into the passage that led 
to the farmhouse. 

When they reached the house, Eugenie’s father, with 
rake in hand, was cleaning up the rubbish in front of 
the house. He was a little man, with a round face, 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


173 


a small tuft of hair under his lower lip, and a soft 
look in his round eyes such as only Frenchmen possess. 
He halted and glanced up suspiciously at the young 
man who followed his daughter into the yard. M. 
Chauraux was suspicious of all Germans, in spite of 
his sojourn there for many years. 

Eugenie introduced Albert to her father, who ac¬ 
knowledged the introduction grudgingly. He showed 
only such cordiality as his native manners and polite¬ 
ness compelled, mumbling a few words in broken Ger¬ 
man. 

“The gentleman speaks French, papa,” Eugenie 
struck in cheerfully, “and he loves the Emperor as 
much as you do.” 

The Frenchman’s eyes turned with a bright flicker 
and, forgetting that he had just shaken hands with the 
stranger, clasped his hand once more. Then a mist 
appeared in the little man’s eyes and he sighed, mut¬ 
tering under his breath, “The Emperor!” 

“No one loves the Emperor more than I do,” re¬ 
turned Albert. 

“Have you ever seen him?” There was ecstasy on 
the Frenchman’s face. 

“I see him now—I see him all the time—” cried 
Albert with boyish rapture. “I see him seated on a 
small white horse, holding the reins in one hand and 
gently stroking the horse’s neck with the other, rid¬ 
ing slowly along the linden-flanked lane of the Hof- 
garten in my native town—Ah, the Emperor!” Mist 
also appeared in Albert’s eyes. 

Saddened silence. Two speechless individuals with 
drooping heads. The Emperor was a captive on a bar¬ 
ren island far removed from his worshippers. 


174 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Eugenie did not think of the Emperor. She was 
too happy to think of anything save of the cordiality 
between her father and Albert. Her father was very 
strict and never permitted her to form any friendship 
with young men. When the “time” would come he 
would find the proper “parti” for her, was his way 
of thinking. And he guarded jealously the most tri¬ 
vial flirtation on her part He knew nothing of what 
had passed between his daughter and this young man 
beyond the fact that he was a lodger whom his 
daughter had once met at his relative’s home and that 
he happened to meet Eugenie on a chance stroll in 
this vicinity. 

It was about two o’clock and Albert was invited to 
have a meal with them. There were very few words 
exchanged between Albert and Eugenie. All the 
talk was between her father and Albert—about the 
Emperor. 

M. Chauraux did not mind his daughter’s accom¬ 
panying the young man for a little distance. They 
had had a bottle of Burgundy between them and the 
young man admired the Emperor. The Frenchman 
had become quite loquacious and invited Albert to 
come again—any time whenever he could spare an 
hour from his business. Who could tell? The young 
man talked so well, seemed so prosperous, and loved 
the Emperor so much!—Who could tell? He might 
be a proper parti . 

M. Chaurauxs regard for Albert increased when, 
several days later, the young man read to him a poem 
about Napoleon. The Frenchman did not quite grasp 
the verses in German but when Albert gave him the 
substance of it in French and then read the original 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


175 


to him, with unshed tears in his eyes, he even under¬ 
stood the German. 

The young poet declaimed his verses with passion¬ 
ate abandon, music in his voice, tears in his eyes. The 
eyes of M. Chauraux, too, were clouded, the tuft of 
hair under his lower lip quivered, and he shook his 
head and sighed and murmured “Mein Kaiser, mein 
Kaiser gefangen!” 

M. Chauraux wiped a tear away. Who could tell? 
This young man, though not French, certainly loved 
the Emperor, and was evidently not averse to Eu¬ 
genie—yes, he might be a proper parti for Eugenie. 

One day, when Eugenie came into the house, having 
escorted Albert down the road, her father was seated 
at the table—there was only one table and one room 
which served as dining and living room—his arms 
resting upon it, as was his wont; his bushy eyebrows 
frowning as if he were working on a hard puzzle; his 
eyes staring in front; his short, stubby fingers drum¬ 
ming absently upon the table. He glanced at his 
daughter and noticed the expression of exultation on 
her face. 

“A talented young man, hein?” said the father, with¬ 
out removing his arms from the table, and looking 
directly at her. 

“Yes, he is,” Eugenie replied demurely, as was be¬ 
coming a virtuous girl when her father makes reference 
to a young man. 

“Very talented—very,” he repeated and turned in the 
direction of the window to his left. “Not a bad sort.” 

Eugenie was silent and began busying herself with 
some household duties. 


176 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“Mein Kaiser , mein Kaiser gefangen!” hummed M. 
Chauraux, nodding his head sorrowfully and lightly 
tapping the table with the tips of his fingers. 

'‘He might make a good husband for some nice girl,” 
the father said apropos of nothing a little later. < 

Eugenie was scouring a copper kettle and her head 
lowered as she applied herself to the utensil with more 
determination, without making any comment. 

A girl should not be too frivolous, mused M. Chau¬ 
raux, but still Eugenie ought not to be that bashful. 
She could at least encourage the young man, he said 
to himself, and take a little interest in him when he 
comes to the house. So far the conversations in the 
house were invariably carried on between the men, 
and always about the Emperor. 

“You are past eighteen, my child,” he presently 
addressed his daughter, “and if the right young man 
would come along I should like to see you married.” 

He rose from the table and came close to her. 
Eugenie, her face reddening, did not raise her eyes. 

“You like Monsieur Zorn—hein?” 

The scouring sound was the only reply. 

M. Chauraux was puzzled. He could not quite re¬ 
concile her blushes with her silence. She never did 
care for the German young men, he said to himself. 

“He is so different from the other Germans/* the 
father pursued the same object, flattering himself on 
his ingenious probing. 

“Yes, he is different.” 

M. Chauraux walked out of the house in a reflec¬ 
tive mood. When a girl thinks a young man different 
from other young men she might be in love with/him. 
Yes, he might be a good parti . 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


177 


IV. 

Weeks passed on, happy weeks for Albert His 
stock was dwindling, so was his money, but what did 
he care? M. Chauraux made no objections to his 
frequent visits at the farm and at intervals Eugenie, 
on the pretext of visiting her relative, came to the 
city and met Albert. Eugenie, too, was happy. They 
were now avowed lovers, and nothing else mattered. 
The fact that her love was clandestine added zest to 
her passion. For while her father approved of Albert 
as a suitor properly chaperoned by himself, she realized 
what would happen if he learned of their intimacy 
in his absence. And when Albert and Eugenie were 
alone they never discussed the future. The present 
was enough for them. 

But Albert's happiness never did continue long. 

One day Aaron Hirsch—the faithful Aaron—entered 
the private office of his master, with a woe-begone ex¬ 
pression on his countenance and emitted a half-stifled 
sigh. 

“Herr Banquier,” he addressed the banker, with a 
wave of his hands, “something must be done before it's 
too late—I mean about your esteemed nephew. I have 
kept my eye on him as I was bidden but now I am 
obliged to bring to you a matter of grave importance.” 

“What is the young scamp up to now?” 

“A young scamp he is not, Herr Banquier.” Aaron 
gave a soft laugh and rubbed his hands obsequiously. 
“But a young man is a young man and his mind 
naturally turns to girls as the sunflower turns to the 


178 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

sun/* He emitted a cackle and wiped his lips with the 
palm of his right hand. 

“What is it?” Mr. Zorn was impatient. 

“It's still the matter I spoke to you about some time 
ago. The Frenchman’s daughter. Well, Herr Ban- 
quier, a young man is a young man and a girl is a girl 
—a—you see—a—it might be too late—” He gave a 
helpless shrug of his shoulders. 

“Does her father know of this?” 

“This is what I have come to tell you, Herr Banquier. 
The other day I drove down to Monsieur Chauraux’ 
farm on the pretext of selling him a lottery ticket and 
incidentally pumped him about his daughter’s relations 
with your worthy nephew. He thinks the young man 
is going to marry his daughter—” 

“Why didn’t you tell him Albert is living on my 
charity?” burst out Leopold Zorn. 

“Yes, Herr Banquier, I did hint to him that the 
young man has nothing beyond that his philanthropic 
uncle sees fit to give him. Perhaps I should have 
alluded to the difference in their religions.” Aaron 
looked up at his master inquiringly. 

“Religion or no religion, the scamp has no intention 
of marrying her. Go and tell him that.” 

“I hope it’s not too late.” 

“Then don’t stand jabbering here. Go over at once 
and see the Frenchman again.” 

“Yes, Herr Banquier, I know where I can get a 
vehicle and can go at once—I hope it’s not too late— 
I saw him with her at the Swiss Pavilion yesterday— 
Yes, Herr Banquier, I can get a vehicle around the 
corner and go at once,” Aaron repeated as he humbly 
bowed out of the banker’s presence. 



THE SUBLIME JESTER 


179 


A few days later Albert approached the farmhouse 
with bouncing joy in his heart. He had told Eugenie 
at their last rendezvous in the city what time he would 
get to the farm and she was to meet him at a little 
grove about half a mile from the house. Eugenie was 
still feigning bashfulness in her father’s presence. 

It was early autumn, heaps of dead leaves in the 
grove. Albert pondered at her absence. On other 
occasions he had found her standing near a silver birch 
waiting for him or concealed in a clump of underbrush 
playing hide and seek with him. He loved those 
tantalizing moments, running this way and that, punc¬ 
tuated by her silver laughter, and when he would catch 
her, panting and out of breath, he would clasp her in 
his arms and kiss her throat and lips and hair. The 
partly denuded trees now disclosed her absence at a 
glance. He stood still and waited. Then he stepped out 
in the open and looked down the road but she was 
not in sight. His eagerness made him nervous. She 
had never failed in their appointments. When he had 
approached the grove blissful expectancy was in his 
breast, and the disappointment was doubly provoking. 
Then fear possessed him. She might be ill. 

After a space he strode toward her home. It was 
a one-story, straw-thatched cottage, and as he entered 
the little yard he looked at once at the door and at 
the two little windows on either side. No one seemed 
around. 

Albert rapped on the door. He heard a voice with¬ 
in. It was M. Chauraux’s voice; his voice in anger. 

He rapped again. 

Silence. 

Albert’s heart throbbed with misgivings. 


180 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Again he knocked. 

The door soon opened with a rapid movement, M. 
Chauraux on the threshold with a forbidding look in 
his round brown eyes. 

Albert greeted him with his usual cordiality but with 
a fast-beating heart. 

M. Chauraux’s eyes moved from side to side, the 
tuft under his lower lip projecting ominously. 

"Is—is Madmoiselle Eugenia unwell ?” Albert stam¬ 
mered. 

M. Chauraux stepped forward and closed the door 
behind him. 

"I can’t allow you to see Eugenie any more,” said 
the irate father brusquely. 

"But-” 

"I want no arguments,” M. Chauraux resumed 
harshly. "And no letters—they won’t be delivered to 
her—no more clandestine rendezvous—you hear? I 
have had enough trouble with the police and want no 
controversy with your banker uncle.” 

And without further explanation he entered the 
house and slammed the door. 

Albert walked away, and reaching the gate turned 
around and looked at the window but he only saw the 
reflection of the gray autumn sky in the panes. He 
turned into the road and walked slowly back, with 
measured steps, striking with his cane at the wilted 
leaves on the ground and at the little stones by the 
wayside. Was there ever an Adam who was not 
driven out of the Garden of Eden on some pretext 
or other, Albert mused bitterly. What was his alleged 
sin ? He could not tell, he could not divine. What 
had suddenly turned M. Chauraux against him? Al- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


181 


bert could not account. He did not doubt Eugenie’s 
love. When he reached the grove he paused. Every 
tree, every grassy spot was full of sweet memories. 
He sighed. Sweet memories belong to old age, they 
are the white mile-stones long passed and glistening in 
the distance. For the moment he felt aged, an un¬ 
fortunate Atlas, with the world of sorrows on his 
back- 

“Ich UngluckseVger Atlas! eine Welt , 

“Die game Welt der Schmerzen, muss ich tragen” 

Yes, he felt as if the whole world of sorrows was 
on his back, bearing the unbearable, with a mortify¬ 
ing pain in his heart. He had insisted upon either 
eternal bliss or endless misery—no compromise—and 
since eternal bliss was denied him misery was the only 
alternative. He settled upon a tree stump nearby lost 
in brooding reflections. He felt the weight of life 
heavily upon him, it was crushing him. He could not 
think of life without the sweetness of love, and that 
seemed to have been taken away from him for ever. 
All events seem final to youth. 

Time was passing. He could not tear himself 
away from this place, from where he could see the 
straw-thatched roof in the midst of a cluster of leaf' 
less trees. He could see the path daily trodden by 
her feet, the underbrush that touched her skirt. How 
could he go on living without the lustre of her eyes, 
without the clinging contact of her hands, without the 
sweet warmth of her breath? 

Before he realized darkness had come and the moon 
and stars appeared. He had never seen the lights 
of heaven look down so sadly. Were they, too, love¬ 
lorn? 


182 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


With sudden determination he rose and walked back 
to the farmhouse, nothing definite in his mind. The 
gate was ajar and there was no light in the house, 
the pallor of the moon falling upon the window-panes. 
The window to the left was her window, a few feet 
away from her bed. Here he stood, gazing lovingly 
upward. He rose on his tip-toes and his face was on 
a level with the bottom pane. He gently tapped on 
the glass but no one stirred within. 

“Eugenie/’ he murmured, “Eugenie!” 

No one appeared at the window, no one but the moon¬ 
light over his shoulder. 

He removed his diamond ring—his mother’s heirloom 
—and scratched on the pane before him, “Moi je n’exist e 
que pour vous aimer 

He paused, a sad smile on his face, and turned to 
the road. 

A peasant was driving by. Albert asked for a lift. 
“Hop in,” said the peasant hospitably, “I am going all 
the way to the city.” 

An hour later Albert was on the Jungfernstiegj. 
The lane was crowded with promenaders, the moon 
seemed to shine more cheerily here, the stars twinkled 
brighter. With his head lifted there was abandon in 
his gait. Girls walked past him with luring glances 
but he only smiled and walked on. Presently he was 
in front of the Apollo Hall, ablaze with a thousand 
candles, astir with a thousand voices. The Apollo was 
a gay place. The blowing of trumpets reached his 
ears, the rattling of drums, the sounds that stir the 
blood of youth. His steps halted. 

“Do come in for old times' sake!” 

Some one had arrested his arm. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


183 


And from the Apollo came the blowing of trumpets, 
the rattling of drums, the sounds that stir the blood 
of youth . . . 


V. 

Winter had come and gone. A bleak day in March. 
Wind, sleet, a drab sky. 

In a little shop in Beckerstrasse, in Hamburg, a 
young man, with pale cheeks and light brown hair and 
narrowed eyes, was seated before a little table heaped 
with bills, invoices, and dunning letters. Some of these 
reminders of indebtedness, were unfolded before him, 
others were on a spindle, and still others were un¬ 
opened. Why open letters when one knows their 

contents? With hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets, 
his legs extended under the table, the pale young man 
looked forlorn. He seemed at once reckless and be¬ 
wildered, sorrowful and carefree. There was mist 
in his eyes. The postman had just handed him a let¬ 
ter from his father. Not a line from his mother. 

“How did it all happen?”—was the import of his 
father’s letter. How did it all happen? Figures had 
always been the bane of Albert’s existence and to an¬ 
swer this question one must deal with figures. A bit¬ 
ter smile suddenly appeared on his sensitive lips, and 
his eyes narrowed still more—mere fine lines of in¬ 
definable color. How did it all happen? A memory 
from his school days flitted across his brain and his 

smile was bitter no longer. “When you grow up,” his 

mathematics teacher had told him, “you’ll have to have 
some one else to count your money for you, or you 


184 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


won’t have any.” And striking him with a lead-edged 
ruler the teacher had made the announcement emphatic. 

The young man threw his head back and laughed 
as he remembered the incident. Soon he forgot his 
father’s letter and that vexing question, forgot the 
bills and invoices, and his mind lingered upon his 
early school days. He had always hated those school 
days, but now there was a yearning in his heart for the 
teachers and text-books and for—yes, even for the 
lead-edged ruler and gnarled stick. What if some 
stupid monk had struck him with a ruler or cane ? 
Those were happy days, when one was not worried 
about paying bills and about letters that demanded how 
it had happened! He sighed deeply and stretched his 
arms yawningly upward. “Those were happy days,” 
he repeated to himself. 

His eyes dropped upon his father’s letters before 
him. He became irritable and vexed. Hte had 
thrashed it out with his uncle and now his father had 
started all over again. “What will become of you, 
Albert?” his father had added. “You are already in 
your twenty-second year and have failed in everything 

in everything. You have not only brought ruin upon 
yourself but also upon your poor old father. For I am 
getting old, Albert, and instead of my supporting you, 
you should take care of me. And at my age I am now 
obliged to leave here and start over again at some 
other town. I can read between the lines of your 
uncle’s letter that your conduct in other respects has 
not been irreproachable.” 

He pushed the letter away from himself. He was 
growing angry with his father, with his mother, with 
his uncle. Why had they pressed business upon him? 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


185 


They had known he had no taste for business. What 
right had they now to complain? 

He rose from his seat and paced the floor. He did 
not blame himself any longer. 

He locked the door. With the door locked he felt 
secure from disturbers. Then, taking out a few 
sheets from his breast pocket began to scan an un¬ 
completed poem. Presently he replaced the sheets, 
uninvited thoughts intruded upon him. His erstwhile 
cynical look faded. His eyes closed and he heaved a 
sigh. The thought of his family moving away from 
Gunsdorf pained him. Hiis family had lived in Guns- 
dorf all their lives, and now they must move to a 
little village. He blamed Nature for all their misery. 
Who knows, he mused, Kant may be right. There was 
no guiding Providence. How could there be with so 
many rascals inheriting the earth ? What a stupid 
world to believe in a guiding Providence! Or was 
Providence stupid?- 

The door rattled, the lock was tormented, but he 
hated to turn around to see who the disturber was. 
Everything around him was so misguided,. he mused. 

“Open the door!” 

It was the voice of that magpie, Aaron Hirsch. He 
was fond of Aaron and jumped up to open the door. 

“You can't do business with the door locked,” 
laughed Aaron. 

“Just as much as with the door open,” Albert re¬ 
tried in a challenging voice. 

Aaron laughed good naturedly, unbuttoning his coat, 
heaved a long drawn sigh, and asked, “How is busi¬ 
ness?” 

“An ingenious question? Oh, business is wonderful 


186 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

—simply wonderful—can't you see? I have sold every 
bit of my stock-” 

Aaron laughed. 

“What's the good word from Uncle Leopold?-" 

“I am coming on no mission from him,” Aaron 
rejoined, shrugging his shoulders as if the mere 
thought of it was foreign to him. 

“Aaron Hirsch, for this falsehood you'll have to fast 
two Mondays and two Thursdays, and at that I am 
sure on the Day of Judgment, when you’ll begin to 
tell all the good deeds you had done in this world, a 
seraph will rush in, clapping his wings, and will halt 
your entering through the gates of heaven because you 
had lied to a poor innocent earthly poet.” 

“You are too good to hold this against me,” laughed 
Aaron. 

“No, I won’t. No sooner will that denouncing se¬ 
raph have spoken when I will gallop in on a fiery steed 
and say, ‘Lord of Hosts, poor Aaron only lied because 
he wished to preserve a wife and seven children from 
starvation.’ Whereupon the Lord of Hosts will brush 
the seraph aside and say, ‘Let him in. It’s no sin to 
lie for one’s wife and seven children,’ and will praise 
you before the sun, the moon and all the shining stars, 
and will appoint you an angel of the First Grade, 
with the right to wear wings of the color of the Swiss 
Guards.” 

Aaron “hi-hi’d,” and “ha-ha’d” and “ho-ho’d” and 
ended with a shriek of uncontrollable laughter. 

“If you’ll permit me to light my pipe,” Hirsch said 
a moment later, as he stuck the bowl of his pipe into 
the mouth of his leather pouch, “I'll tell you the 
truth, though I have given my word to your uncle not 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


187 


to tell you this. But remember, your uncle must not 

know that I told you or-” 

“I understand, your wife and seven children—” 
“Well, sir,” continued Hirsch, “your esteemed uncle 
has instructed me to find out the exact amount of your 
indebtedness and how much you owe for your board 
and lodging. And he wants you to come and see him 
tomorrow before noon—but not a word of what I told 
you about paying your debts.” 


VI. 

Hirsch soon left and Albert was again alone. He 
dreaded the meeting with his uncle. If he could only 
check himself and let his uncle’s storm blow over, but 
he insisted upon arguing, trying to convince his uncle 
that he, Albert, and not the banker, was right. A 
gleam of hope appeared on the horizon. Uncle Leo¬ 
pold had hinted at paying him a stipend if he would 
go to the university of Bonn or Goettingen and con¬ 
tinue his studies. 

What studies? What profession would suit him? 
His first thought was of medicine, the career of his 
grandfather and of his Uncle Joseph, but he hated 
medicine. Besides, Albert was not blind to his short¬ 
comings. An exact science was not for him. Ana¬ 
tomy, Materia Medica, Physiology, Chemistry—his 
head began to ache at the very thought of committing 
formulas and definitions to memory. What other pro¬ 
fession was open to him? He smiled as he recalled 
Father Schumacher’s advice to his mother. Yes, stu¬ 
dent life in Rome appealed to him. The robe of the 


188 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


priest might even be becoming to him. He visualized 
himself in the black robe of the priesthood and a hu¬ 
morous smile spread over his countenance. He had 
read the “Decameron” and had also heard not a few 
delectable yams about priests. And he recalled the 
pretty face of a nun with downcast demure eyes. And 
the blue skies of Italy and the dark skinned maidens of 
Tuscany—many fantasies leaped into his brain, allur¬ 
ing fantasies. The priesthood seemed to him an ideal 
career for a poet. He always loved mythology, and, 
after all, he continued in the same musing vein, Cath¬ 
olicism was the new mythology. The Immaculate Con¬ 
ception, the Virgin, the Man God, the Crucifixion, the 
Altar, the Incense—mythology of another age. What 
difference did it make whether God is one, Three or 
a Million? The Children of Men must have toys to 
play with, and one is as good as another. Toys never 
last long. The children play with them a while, destroy 
them, and cry for more toys, which, in turn, are 
broken and replaced by others. The Persians found 
amusement in one kind of toy, the Jews in another, 
the Greeks in still another, and then the Romans, and 
so on until the end of time. Conversion? Albert 
laughed as this term passed through his mind. It had 
always been so odious to the Jews, and was also odious 
to him, but now he laughed at the thought of it. 

The day drew to a close. He rose, put on his hat 
and topcoat, locked the shop, and walked aimlessly 
along the streets, still musing and thinking. His 
thoughts were soon arrested by the procession of 
Jndenhetzers singing an obscene song. His idle mus¬ 
ing stopped. 

All thoughts fled from his mind. He felt as if 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


189 


some one had suddenly gripped at his heart and wrung 
every drop of blood from it. And he, too, moved 
along, the very poignant pain propelling him onward. 
People in the procession saw him but no one took 
him for one of the Chosen. His blond hair and proud 
bearing saved him from personal molestation. 

The following morning found Albert in bed, suffer¬ 
ing from a painful headache, needles pricking at the 
base of his brain. The good Frau Rodbertus applied 
compresses to his head and attended him with maternal 
tenderness. 

“Too much reading and writing, Herr Zorn/' she 
spoke solicitously and passed her hand soothingly over 
his disheveled hair and feverish brow. 

“Nein , Hebe Frau Rodbertus, zu viel Christliche 
Liebe, (too much Christian love)/’ he murmured, a 
strange smile stealing over his wan features. 

Frau Rodbertus smiled, too. She took him literally 
and, waving an admonishing finger at him with scold¬ 
ing playfulness said, “The girls will be your ruination 
if you don't take better care of yourself." 

VII 

Later in the day he penned the following letter 
to Christian: 

“My dear Christian: 

“It seems I never write to you unless I am either in 
the seventh heaven or in the depths of hell. How¬ 
ever, just now I may be only in purgatory. Who 
knows? But today I am angry, cross, furious; my 
wits are in mourning; the wings of my fancy are 


190 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


clipped. I am a blind Samson in the midst of jeering 
Philistines, with no pillars to pull down on my enemies. 
I have wound up my immense business, or rather it 
has wound me up. Please don’t laugh. I have risen 
in the world. Very few have achieved the state of 
bankruptcy at my time of life. It’s quite a distinc¬ 
tion, you must own. Well, you always did prophesy 
greatness for me. But my good uncle has paid all 
my obligations so my fame as a bankrupt won’t be of 
long duration. 

“What a life I have led the past twelve months? 
God and Satan strove for my soul and in the con¬ 
flict tore it to shreds. My inner life has been con¬ 
tinuous brooding over the depths of the world of 
dreams, my outer life wild, cynical, dissolute, hateful. 
Yes, amice , at last I understand heaven and hell—with 
special emphasis on the latter. I am sure when I die 
I shall be appointed chief guide in hell, for I am 
familiar with every road and byway of the subterran¬ 
ean region, and could teach Dante a thing or two. Of 
course, my good Christian will have no occasion to 
meet me in Gehenna. I am sure Saint Peter will open 
the gates of heaven for you at the first glimpse of 
your benevolent countenace, but, then, I will interrupt 
the saintly doorkeeper and ask permission to show 
you my dominion first. Who can tell, you may be 
just in time to see Lillith and her bevy of sporting 
witches go bathing in the Styx, and I give you my 
word you shall not be hurried. 

“But I do have good news for you. I shall soon 
leave for Cuxhaven, where the doctors assure me the 
sea baths will restore my health, which has not been 
of the best. And the thought of leaving this hateful 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


191 


city already makes me feel refreshed. I detest this 
place and the people—everybody, everybody. I am 
sick at heart. You can readily understand my state 
of feelings that aside from my own grief—the grief of 
my many dismal failures—my blood is boiling within 
me at the memory of an ugly spectacle I witnessed the 
other night. It is too painful to speak of it; the iron 
has entered my soul; everything within me has turned 
to gall. The 'Baptised traders’ here have launched 
a fierce attack against the Un-Baptised. The irony 
of it! The pot calls the kettle black. Those hideous 
cowards! You know me well enough that I am no 
more blind to the shortcomings of the Jews than any 
Christian, but when I see those selfish, cruel monsters 
revive the barbarism of the Middle Ages my heart 
cries in anguish. Those barbarians! In one breath 
they boast that they surpass the English in commerce, 
the French in art, the Greeks in philosophy, the Romans 
in warfare, and in the very next breath clamor that 
unless the progress of the Jews is checked the Teuton 
will be exterminated! Those miserable cowards! 
Twenty millions of these superior beings afraid of a 
handful of Jews! It would be laughable were it not 
so tragic! But I can’t speak of it, I can’t think of it— 

'‘But wait, the day of reckoning will come. Before 
they have shaved my locks and put my eyes out I 
will tie firebrands to the tails of these foxes—you re¬ 
member the story of Samson and the Philistines ?— 
Yes, I will smite them hip and thigh, but not with the 
jawbone of an ass; a goose quill is my weapon. 

“Did I say I was unhappy? I am to leave this 
cursed city, which holds for me nothing but the bit¬ 
terest memories. So I will go to Bonn. 


192 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“O, what a comedy life is!—But enough! 
From the depths I call to Thee, Oh, Lord! 

Albert” 


VIII. 

A mid-April day, rather warm for the season. The 
sunbeams were playing around the slender spire of the 
Petrithurm at Hamburg, with sparkling flashes at the 
bluish surfaces of the calm waters of the Alster. 

At the curb before one of the houses on Grosse 
Bleichenstrasse stood a blinking horse, harnessed to a 
cart, a driver fidgeting with whip and reins. Soon the 
portal of the courtyard opened and from it emerged a 
strapped black leather valise, then a little squatty man, 
then a slender young man of medium height with 
small greenish eyes and light brown hair, carrying a 
cane and an umbrella in one hand and in the other 
a small bundle. 

The older man placed the valise in the cart, the 
younger one threw in the bundle, umbrella and cane; 
the two clasped hands. 

There was a mist in the prominent eyes of the older 
man. There was a faint smile on the large mouth of 
the younger, a smile pregnant with sadness. 

“Goodbye, mein lieber Herr Z orn/* murmured the 
older man. 

There was emotion in his voice, tenderness in his 
tone, sorrow on his face. 

“Adieu,” muttered the young man; an involuntary 
sigh escaped his lips. 

Their hands remained clasped. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


193 


“I hope success will meet you wherever you turn/' 
the older resumed affectionately. “I hope your ene¬ 
mies will have no occasion to rejoice-” 

A smile again appeared on the young man’s pale face, 
a cynical smile that only touched the iris of his eyes 
and the corners of his mouth. 

“Don’t worry, lieber Hirsch. Sie werden noch von 
mir h'dren!” (You will hear from me yet!) 

A sympathetic pressure of their hands and they 
both smiled. 

The young man jumped into the vehicle, the driver 
slightly rose in his seat and clacked his tongue, the 
horses moved. 

“Goodbye,” the man called from the curb. 

“Goodbye,” called back the young man from the 
moving cart and waved his hand . . . 














































PART TWO 


A FIGHTER IN THE MAKING 


















THE SALON. 


I. 

Some cities are like affected women. In their desire 
to appear original, without possessing any originality, 
they ape the mannerism of one, the gait of another, 
the gestures of a third, striking poses not their own. 

While Paris, for example, has always been her 
natural self, with her vices and virtues, her elegance 
and tawdriness, her brilliance and superficial glitter, 
which spring from her native appetites; while London, 
likewise, is always herself, as is Vienna and Munich 
and Venice and Florence and Rome; Berlin, of all 
great cities, has never been her real self. With the 
subtle artifices of the poseur she has always imitated 
her envied rivals and at the same time ridiculed those 
whose manners she simulated. Her lurking jealousy 
has always decided her model. It is a safe prophecy 
that within a decade Berlin will pattern her life 
after New York and will at the same time raise her 
voice in derision against the materialism of the great 
American Metropolis. 

Berlin a century ago, no different from Berlin of 
today, had broad avenues, beautiful public gardens, 
spacious boulevards, gaudy palaces, luxurious homes, 
busy restaurants, noisy cafes, all immaculately kept 
197 


198 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


with the orderliness of an army on parade, and with 
a palpable newness that made one feel that the city 
and all her gardens, avenues, boulevards, palaces, were 
laid out by cord and line, chiefly after the design of an 
individual, without the least indication of the character 
or ideas of the inhabitants. 

During the Napoleonic wars, especially after Blu¬ 
sher's hospitality in the British capital, Berlin had be¬ 
come London-mad and copied her life openly, but no 
sooner was the treaty of Paris concluded, and Na¬ 
poleon’s threatening shadow was definitely removed, 
than Berlin struck her former pose. She again wished 
to vie with her hated rival, Paris. Salons were formed, 
art circles sprang into being, the Prussian beganf tb 
scoff in Voltairean style, simulated French .wit, and 
presented plays of flagrant immorality which to the 
Berliner seemed quite Parisian. 

Superficial imitation, however, frequently brings 
about changes of a deeper nature. With the adoption 
of foreign fashions came foreign ideas. The spirit of 
revolt which had been smouldering in Paris—soon 
to break out in roaring flames—had also permeated 
the Kaiserstadt. French ideals had sifted in and Young 
Germany was awaking. 

But whenever, and wherever, people fight for free¬ 
dom the brave and the strong perish that the cowardly 
and the weak may live. Officialdom is ever ready 
to forgive the offenses of the truckler. At this per¬ 
iod, however, even the weaklings sought an outlet 
for their aroused feelings—in polemics that did not 
disturb the Prussian officials. Religion, philosophy, 
romanticism, were safe substitutes. At no epoch in 
the history of Germany did the land abound in so many 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


199 


cults and sects as during the last two decades of the 
reign of that weak and good-natured king, Frederic 
William the Third. There were the Kantians, who 
discarded all miracles and regarded Christianity as a 
mere philosophic doctrine; the Hegelians, who were 
pantheistic yet clung to the romantic life story of 
Jesus; the followers of Schleiermacher, who swung 
between Pantheism and Rationalism, without touching 
either; and then there were the unadulterated romanti¬ 
cists, who followed—without clear understanding— 
Fichte, Schlegel and Schelling. 

The vortex of all great discussions was the salon of 
Rahel Varnhagen von Ense. Her house at No. 20 
Friedrichstrasse was the Mecca of all people of note 
and her “at home” was sought with eagerness. Not 
to have known Rahel reflected upon one’s intellectual 
standing. And Karl August Varnhagen von Ense was 
modest enough not to resent being known as Rahel’s 
husband. His admiration for his wife’s personality 
equalled his great love for her. 

Rahel was as enigmatic and as paradoxical as the 
race from which she sprang. With her, as with her 
race, the unexpected happened. The daughter of a 
wealthy merchant and bearing the name of Rachel 
Levin at a period when a Jewish name was the greatest 
social handicap in Berlin, she had risen to a secure 
place in society. Princes courted her, artists sought 
her counsel, men of letters craved her opinion. No 
less a personage than Wolfgang von Goethe, at the 
very zenith of his fame, sent in his card. Unlike her 
social rival, Henrietta Herz, it was not physical beauty 
nor fascinating coquetry that helped her win her po¬ 
sition in society. Rather plain looking, save for her 


200 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


brilliant black eyes, and small of stature, she possessed 
that indefinable charm which is even more attractive 
than beauty; and although she had already reached 
her fiftieth year her slender figure gave her a girlish 
appearance. 

With the tact of a clever hostess she engaged one 
guest in conversation while her ears caught the drift 
of the talk of another. 

“Rahel has discovered a new poetic genius,” her 
husband was saying. 

His smile was not that of banter but rather of tri¬ 
umph. There was pride in his small featured counten¬ 
ance. 

A little man, with a large head and an ugly sharp 
face, was laughing blandly, as an echo to von Ense’s 
remark. 

'T see you are sceptical about new poetic geniuses, 
Pastor Schleiermacher,” resumed von Ense. 

“No,” said the little man, still laughing, “but I 
thought that with Herr von Goethe still alive Frau 
Varnhagen would admit of no other poetic genius.” 

Rahel, who was giving her attention to one of Hegel’s 
discourses Hegel was always delivering discourses, 
even in drawingrooms—caught the gist of Schleier¬ 
macher s ironic remark and her smiling eyes seemed 
to say, “Wait until Professor Hegel gets through 
with his monologue and you shall get your deserts.” 

However, the opportunity had not yet come. Pro¬ 
fessor Hegel was still laboring to complete his sen¬ 
tence in his strong Swabian accent, speaking haltingly, 
with jerking gestures, and, swaying his body awkward¬ 
ly, he continued: 

“As I was saying, when I think a thought, for in- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


201 


stance, I am not thinking my own thought but only 
part of the universal thought of all .human intelligence, 
and while the thought strikes me as my own it is only 
the thought of the universe I am thinking, and when 
I think of God, or rather of the absolute, the idea of 
the consciousness of one, I am only thinking as part 
of the whole which is God—in other words, my con¬ 
sciousness of this thought and the opposite of this 
very thought are one and the same thing, both being 
the same consciousness of an integral whole-” 

Rahel welcomed the guests while giving part of her 
mind to Hegel, who was laboring through the labyrinth 
of his thoughts, seeking a way out. Fortunately Hegel 
minded no intrusions nor interruptions, and with his 
shoulders stooped, his prematurely aged, wrinkled coun¬ 
tenance undergoing the visible contortions of a twitching 
pair, proceeded: 

“In other words, though directed an sich, concern¬ 
ing and pertaining to one’s self as an incomplete and 
imperfect existence—such thought, as I have clearly 
demonstrated, is different and yet identical, all form¬ 
ing complementary parts of a whole, as segments 
make up a circle, and yet without a circle there can 
be no segments-” 

“Clearly so,” struck in the hostess. 

“Yes, Pastor Schleiermacher,” she turned her keen 
eyes upon the little savant, “I have discovered a new 
poetic genius. Venus may shine even though the 
greater lustre is that of Jupiter.” 

She wished him to know that she had overheard his 
pleasant^ about the bard of Weimar. 

“Who is this new genius—a Berliner?” 

Several other faces turned upon the hostess. 


202 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“No, a recent arrival. He hails originally from 
the Rhineland but he has just come from Goettingen, a 

student of Jurisprudence-” 

“With no past ?’ 1 

“All future,” laughed Rahel. “Yes, he has something 

pelled from Goettingen-” 

“Then there is indeed hope for him,” struck in 
Gubitz, editor of the “Gesellschafter ” 

“I expect him here this evening,” Rahel soon added 
seriously. “He has real talent. He promised to bring 
a few of his poems and I may induce him to read them 
to us.” 

When Rahel praised the most critical paused to con¬ 
sider. She had been the first to proclaim Goethe’s 
supremacy when to the literary world at large he was 
still “only one of the poets.” 

Soon Albert was announced and every one divined 
that he was the object of Rahel’s admiration. Even 
Hegel, who was still elucidating his trend of thought, 
raised his eyes to get a glimpse of the newcomer. 

Dressed in a velvet frock coat and frilled shirt, with 
lace falling over his white, beautifully shaped hands, 
with a broad laid-down collar, he looked taller than 
he actually was. In his face was boyishness with 
something indefinable about the deep corners of his 
mouth that already spoke of world-weariness, and the 
peculiar twinkle in his narrowed eyes accentuated 
the suggestion of cynicism. 

Rahel, with the savoir faire of the hostess of a 
celebrated salon, made a special effort to put the 
young man at his ease. She realized that in spite of 
his innate pride—the pride she well understood the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


203 


gathering of so many notables, so many years his sen¬ 
iors, embarrassed him. She meant to be his patroness. 
Inwardly she was already proud of him. She was 
not displeased with the manner in which he met the 
brilliant assemblage. She could see he was not over- 
modest but she was enough of a student of human 
nature to know that while true genius may under¬ 
stand its own limitations it is never humble enough 
to reveal them to others. Again, she was pleased be¬ 
cause he did not betray his Semitic lineage. She had 
not yet outlived her secret wish to obliterate her ra¬ 
cial past, though in her heart of hearts—deeper than 
she permitted herself to penetrate—she was proud that 
he was of her race. 

She kept close to him all evening, eagerly watching 
over him lest he might make some faux pas and put 
himself in a wrong light before the critical audience. 
She was conscious of his youth and of his readiness 
of speech, and knew the prejudice of elders against a 
talkative young man, no matter how scintillating. For 
after a momentary constraint Albert joined in the 
conversation with his wonted recklessness and offered 
opinions that might be construed as presumptive in a 
man of his age. And she was particularly glad that 
he had made a favorable impression upon Gublitz. The 
editor was not as pedantic as most of the coterie and 
possessed enough of cynicism himself to appreciate 
the young poet’s bitter tongue. She was counting on 
the editor of the “Gesellschapter” to be of service to 
her protege. 

Though she urged him to read a few of his poems 
she was pleased when Albert declined, and she was 


204 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

still more gratified when he handed her a packet for 
her personal perusal. 


II. 

Albert left Rahel’s salon elated. Rahel was a reve¬ 
lation to him. In the past two years he had met 
learned Professors at Bonn and Goettingen, and had 
met a few charming women, but had as yet never 
met a person of either sex that combined the erudition 
of pedants with the ease engendered by good social 
breeding. 

What particularly drew him towards her was her 
naturalness; her freedom of sham, her uncompromis¬ 
ing truthfulness. And what was rarest of all, she was 
innocent of all prejudices. She could sympathize with 
those whose opinions were diametrically opposed to 
her own. Inner suffering is very often the most effective 
instructor of tolerance. The only thing she despised 
and for which she showed no sympathy, was correct 
mediocrity—Philistinism. At last Albert Zorn had 
found a kindred spirit. 

His experiences of the past two years had prepared 
him for this friendship. He had read a great deal, 
thought profoundly, and suffered no little since he left 
Hamburg. Embittered by his unrequited love he had 
fled from the Schacherstadt as from a nightmare, and 
at first found Bonn very much to his liking. Not only 
was the atmosphere of learning alluring after the sor¬ 
did commercialism of Hamburg, but the town on the 
Rhine, with its picturesque surrounding, reawakened 
in him the sentiments of his boyhood. And here, 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


205 


too, was the friend of his boyhood, Christian 
Lutz, also another old classmate. Indeed, at hrst 
it seemed like old times. He was again sauntering 
along the banks of his beloved river, dreaming fanci¬ 
ful dreams; he persuaded himself that he had obliter¬ 
ated the rankling memories of that hateful city, the 
cradle of his great sorrows. 

And though already twenty-two he flung himself 
into the college life with boyish ardor. He became a 
member of the Burschenschaft, joined the Round Table 
of a young literary coterie, and participated in the 
students’ pastimes, such as fencing and dueling, and 
only refrained from smoking and drinking because 
of his precarious health. Save for his narrowed dreamy 
eyes and peculiar restlessness, he appeared as a typical 
“flotter Bursch”. He wore a black coat, a red cap, 
and across his breast shone the colors of the Burschen- 
schaft, a band of black, red and gold. 

The Burschenschaft was more than a mere student 
fraternity, with cameraderie as its objective. It claimed 
idealistic aims. Its leaders spoke of a United Ger¬ 
many, they prattled of Neo-Hellenism—the Neo-Hel¬ 
lenism of Goethe and Winckelmann—they orated about 
Romanticism— “Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird 
Welt .”- 

But much as they indulged in fine speeches their 
real aims were visionary— Schwdrmerei— rather than 
practical. It was only the Prussian Government that 
took them seriously. The assassination of Kotzebue 
by a fanatic student had aroused the authorities to 
drastic action. Students had been expelled, profes¬ 
sors incarcerated, the members of the Burschenschaft 


206 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


were under police surveillance. And the open antagon¬ 
ism of the Government fanned the smouldering embers 
of revolt in the breasts of the young dreamers who 
despised Prussian tyranny. 

Albert joined the Burschenschaft at this critical 
moment, and brought to it all the zeal of a new con¬ 
vert. Hitherto he had given but little thought to po¬ 
litical strife, his being had been immersed in romantic 
sentiments of the heart, but in this league he beheld 
the means to a great end. To him the B ursc hens c haft 
stood for the contending force against Prussianism. 
And when one night the students marched to the 
Kreuzberg, back of the town, where by the glow of 
flaming torches and bonfires they voiced their undying 
loyalty to the great cause, Albert Zorn was one of the 
most fervid. It was his first taste of action. His^ in¬ 
nate love of liberty flared up and took the place of his 
erstwhile sentimentality. 

Through the carelessness of a fellow student, who 
had written a report of this torch parade to an editor, 
the authorities learned of this march and at once cited 
the offenders to appear before the Universitdtsrichtcr 
(college judge). In the protocol it was charged that 
not only was the Burschenschaft greeted with <( Lebe 
hoch!” but a seditious speech was made which ended 
with the following ominous words: “Brothers, a great 
burden rests upon our shoulders. We must free the 
oppressed Fatherland! And out of the 216 members 
of the Burschenschaft only Albert Zorn and three 
others were singled out for chastisement. True, he 
was not severely punished but the accusation and the 
proceeding of the trial were enough to deepen his 
hatred for Prussian rule, and to dampen his ardor for 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


207 


Bonn. Moreover, this unexpected jolt brought clarity 
to his vision. His temporary illusion was gone. He 
saw the futility of the Burschenschaft ; its members 
had not displayed such courage at the trial as to arouse 
his admiration. He saw in their endeavors nothing 
but sound and empty phrases. He had mistaken the 
boyish circle for a manly organization. 

In addition to his disillusions came the crushing 
disappointments as regards Christian Lutz. Albert was 
grieved at the change in his boyhood friend. The son 
of a Prussian official, he began to reveal his inner self. 
The leopard could not change his spots. Instead of the 
buoyant youngster that he had been in former years, 
Christian was now a stolid young man and frowned 
upon all liberal views. Albert felt that Christian was 
regarding him with the eyes of a Prussian official, for 
which function he was preparing himself. And Chris¬ 
tian had also lost interest in literature. He regarded 
Albert's poetic flights as mere child’s play, unbecoming 
a serious minded student. 

At the end of the second semester Albert again 
found himself alone and aloof, walking, brooding, plan¬ 
ning, sick at heart. Everybody and everything had 
suddenly changed, only he was the same, the same 
dreamer, dreaming of things that were not coming true. 

Discouraged he left Bonn and went to Goettingen. 
However, it did not take him long to realize the fal¬ 
lacy of the change. Instead of the picturesque scenery 
of the former town the environments of Goettingen 
were commonplace and instead of the romantic spirit 
of the Bonn University the air in this “learned nest” 
was charged with pedantry; everybody was bent on 
“grinding”, with scholarship as its shibboleth. And 


208 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


what was more irritating to the democratic son of the 
Rhineland was the predominant element of the Han¬ 
noverian Junker aristocracy; the superciliousness and 
the boorishness of these tyrannical fledglings goaded 
him on to voicing his contempt for the whole breed. 
Always outspoken, always blunt, always showing his 
likes and dislikes too plainly, he made no secret of his 
opinions. As a result he had quickly gained a reputa¬ 
tion for wit but at the expense of popularity. The 
historian Sartorius, one of Albert’s professors at Goet¬ 
tingen and an ardent admirer of his talents, lauded 
the young poet’s verses which were shown him, but 
added, “ Indessen , man zwird Sie nicht lieben” No, 
they neither loved his songs nor himself at Goettingen. 

Before long he was again called before the Universi- 
tatsrichter. A charge was lodged against him that he 
had challenged one of the students, a nobleman, to a 
duel, against the rules of the University. He admitted 
the charge and justified his act because his opponent 
had questioned his veracity. But the college judge 
would not recognize such a defense. 

So after a summer of study and foot-journeys with 
a knapsack on his back he came to Berlin. 


III. 

Berlin thrilled him at first. Keen observer though 
he was, he mistook her superficial dazzle for a deeper 
brilliancy. He was still looking at the world with the 
eyes of a rustic. The opera, the galleries, the fine 
avenues, the gay cafes, the salons —everything about 
him engaged his interest and furnished food for his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


209 


vivid imagination. Furthermore, though still a law 
student, he was received in society as a promising young 
poet and as such many doors of distinguished men 
and women were open to him. 

At last the fates were kind to him, he thought. Ilis 
health had improved, he had a circle of friends and ad¬ 
mirers, he was writing new poems, getting old ones 
published, had finished a poetical drama, and had hopes 
of seeing it presented on the stage. And Rahel’s house 
had become his second home. He did not wait for 
her “at home” but came and went as he pleased. She 
read and criticised every line he wrote, and her sever¬ 
est censure never hurt his feelings. Very frequently 
her husband was also invited to pass critical judgment 
on Zorn’s verses. Dinners and teas with brilliant 
people, late evenings at Lutter and Wegner’s—the 
cafe where the young literary talent of Berlin congre¬ 
gated to discuss the latest book, the latest play, the 
latest musical composition. Conversation was to him 
like reading: it stimulated his own thoughts. And 
when he was not reading or arguing he was strolling 
along Unter den Linden, swinging his cane, his eyes 
narrowed, his chest thrust forward, gathering impres¬ 
sions. When fatigued from walking he dropped in at 
Cafe Josty, famed for its Kaffee mit Saline. 

To be sure, moments of sorrow were not lacking 
even in those happy days. His father’s financial con¬ 
dition had grown worse and then came the crushing 
blow that Hilda was betrothed—that she had preferred 
an everyday business man to a poet by the grace of 
God! Besides, he was always short of a few Louis 
d’or for which he would rob Peter to pay Paul, and 
he was ever perplexed as to where his money had 


210 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


gone. Uncle Leopold’s stipend came punctually on the 
first of the month, and according to his calculations 
should see him through till the first of the next, but 
somehow it never lasted more than a week. Ah, if he 
could only catch up and start with a clean slate 
the next month! Every month he would take a vow 
to be more regular in his habits, more methodical— 
never, never would he be inveigled into a game of 
Pharo—but then at the end of the week he found him¬ 
self with but one Thaler in his pocket, with three 
more weeks before the first of the next month, and he 
would then hasten to one of his friends to borrow 
enough to tide him over the difficult period. Then, 
again there were other sorrows. Albert had collected 
a number of his poems and wished to publish them in 
book form but he was still unable to find a publisher. 
“The bats!” he would mutter under his breath, “I 
turn the sun upon them and they see it not.” Rahel 
was the only one who saw the light. It was heart¬ 
breaking. Byron at his age was already famous and 
he—“Oh, the blind bats!” 

One day a would-be friend came knocking at his 
door. It was late on a cold January morning and he 
was still in bed. He had awakened earlier in the 
morning but a few stray thoughts tormented him so 
he turned over and tried to forget them in sleep. For¬ 
tunately nothing but a headache disturbed his sleep. 
Grief had the opposite effect on him. The day before 
had been a very trying one. He had lost a few Louis 
d’or at Pharo, had a quarrel with one of his comrades 
at Lutter and Wegner’s, and had received an un¬ 
pleasant letter from his parents. So he had stayed 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


211 


up late the night before writing verses on the cruelty 
of fate. 

As he turned in his bed a thought flashed across 
his brain that eternal sleep was the greatest gift of 
the gods—Death! No rejected manuscripts, no un¬ 
requited love, no debts, no asinine critics, no Hegels 
and Schleiermachers, no Jews and Christians, no 
Prussian censors—death surely was bliss, he deter¬ 
mined and buried his head in his pillow. He recalled 
that when he awoke he was in a very pleasant dream, 
and hoped to pick up the golden threads of that fan¬ 
tastic web. He wondered what had awakened him. 
It must have been the sounds outside. Friedrichstras- 
se was becoming noisy, he was saying to himself, 
and he ought to change his lodgings where his pleas¬ 
ant dreams would not be interrupted. He was trying 
to bring back the vanished phantom. He sometimes 
went back to sleep and resumed the dream at the 
point left off, like a story given in instalments. 

Confound that noise outside! Albert was vexed 
with Friedrichstrasse, with the mob that never re¬ 
spected the sensibilities of a poet, with those clatter¬ 
ing hoofs—why could not such heavy treading beasts 
have rubber hoofs? Rubber—a Pharo wheel—a girl’s 
face—the girl was beating a drum—it was deafening . . . 

He rose with a sudden start and blasphemous 
ejaculations. 

“Who is there? What do you want?” he demanded 
in a high pitched voice. 

He remembered that he had forgotten to bolt his 
door, so he shouted again, “Open the door and tell 
me what you want!” 

“A man wants to see you—” 


212 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


'This early? What does he want? Who is he?” 

"I told him you were asleep but he would not leave. 
He said he must see you; and, besides, he said you 
had no business to be asleep at eleven o’clock—” 

“What business is that of his?” Albert shouted. 
“Tell the impudent fool I won’t see him—” 

The landlady laughed blandly. She knew her lodger, 
and there was but a step between his uncontrollable 
wrath and overflowing tenderness. 

His features softened. Hegel’s lectures came punc¬ 
tually at two and he did not want to miss that. It 
was not so much that he wished to hear what the 
philosopher had to say—Hegel had been repeating the 
same thing in the past ten lectures—but he loved to 
watch the Professor’s grotesque movements and the 
peculiar contortions of his wrinkled face. A classr 
mate next to him was making interesting caricatures 
of the Professor while he was lecturing. 

“Who is this fellow?” Albert asked in a modulated 
voice. “Has he no name at all?” 

“He said he was a genius and was sure you’d ap¬ 
preciate him—and he looks like a genius.” 

“You have probably misunderstood him,” laughed 
Albert. “He must have said he wanted to see the 
genius. Alright, let him come in.’” 

The landlady shrugged her shoulders and closed 
the door. 

He was about to throw himself back on his bed 
when she reappeared, followed by the stranger. 

“Look at the damn thing!” the intruder burst out, 
without a word of introduction. “No publisher would 
have it. I showed it to the editor of the “Gesellschaf- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


213 


ter” but he only shook his head and said ‘Show it to 
Albert Zorn/ So here it is!” 

With that he flung a packet of papers on the bed. 

Albert reached for the manuscript, then glanced at 
his visitor. 

“So your name is Krebsfleisch ?” 

“Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch” the stranger cor¬ 
rected him, with a sullen expression on his high cheek¬ 
bones and short, receding chin. His brow was like a 
dome and his eyelids were heavy, with bovine eyes 
protruding. 

“Before long everybody in the land—princes and 
paupers—will know who Johann Friedrich Krebs¬ 
fleisch is!” he added. “The world is as yet too stupid 
to recognize my genius. I was told you might under¬ 
stand me—But you can't be a poet and have that fine 
fur coat!” 

Krebsfleisch suddenly checked himself, his bulging 
eyes turned in the direction of an open colthes-closet, 
where Zorn’s clothes were hanging. He crossed the 
room and patted the fur as if it were a purring cat. 

Albert’s mouth tightened with a humorous smile on 
his lips. There was a mischievous twinkle in his nar¬ 
rowed eyes. He could not decide whether his visitor 
was an escaped lunatic or had not recovered from a 
night’s drinking. He wore a short, tattered coat, 
baggy patched trousers, and his hairy breast was seen 
through his unbuttoned shirt. His headgear was a 
cross between an old-fashioned high silk hat and the 
present day derby. 

“Why don’t you read it?” he presently accosted 
Albert. “Some day you’d be glad to tell your friends 
that the great poet Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch had 


214 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


given you the chance of reading his great epic in man¬ 
uscript. Then he added, as if soliloquising, “Every 
genius is a John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. 
Years later people wake up and try to catch the echo.” 

Albert undid the package and glanced at the title 
page. 

“Since Schiller died no one has produced a tragedy 
worthy of the name. At last you have one before 
you,” Krebsfleisch struck in. 

“Have you published anything?” 

“The idiots can’t seee my genius—yet. And the 
finest quality of my genius is hunger. Yes, I am a 
genius by the grace of god. No one has ever known 
hunger in all its stages as I have.” 

He moved his jaws, his eyes wandering around the 
room. 

A knock at the door and a maid entered with a tray 
of steaming coffee and several rolls and butter. 

Krebsfreisch stared at the food avidly. 

“You must be a millionaire,” he said, sitting down 
at the foot of the bed. “A fur coat, a warm room, 
steaming coffee in the morning'. Are you a poet or 
a publisher?” 

“Just a poetic genius like yourself,” laughed Albert. 

Krebsfleisch looked suspiciously at his host. There 
was something in Albert’s voice that was always 
puzzling. One could never tell whether he was jest¬ 
ing or was in earnest. 

“You can’t possibly drink all this coffee alone?” 
said the visitor. 

“No, I ordered enough for both of us,” responded 
Albert seriously. And he removed the cup from the 
saucer and filled them both to the brim. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


215 


“Which would you rather have, the cup or the 
saucer?” he asked. 

Krebsfleisch’s bulging eyes skipped from one to 
the other, with a peculiar glitter. 

“I always drink my coffee from a saucer,” he finally 
replied, and taking hold of it with both hands carried 
it to his lips. 

“You may have all the bread and butter—I don’t 
care for any this morning,” Albert said nonchalantly. 

Krebsfleisch stared at Zorn incredulously. How 
was it possible that one did not care fo\ oread and 
butter! Overlooking the knife he spread the butter 
on a slice of bread with his finger and began to devour 
it ravenously. 

“That’s how my mother used to spread butter on 
my bread.” His words were half drowned in the full¬ 
ness of his mouth! 

A moment later he sighed. “Those were happy 
days in my native village! My mother had a cow 
and there was always bread and butter and cheese in 
our house, but she insisted she must make an educated 
man of me. It serves her right. I have eaten her out 
of house and all. She inherited silver spoons from 
her father—her father was a Beamter —and I have 
devoured them all. The ladle goes for this semester’s 
tuition.” 

Albert heaved a sigh. He had devoured his mother’s 
pearls and his grandfather had consumed a prayer- 
book with silver clasps during his last term at the medi¬ 
cal school. There was now a bond of sympathy be¬ 
tween the two. There was mist in Albert’s eyes. 
He caught his breath but could not speak. His first 


216 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


impulse was to have fun with the queer stranger but 
instead sympathy filled his heart. 

“There is a pair of trousers I don’t need,” Albert 
said presently. He was too sensitive to make the 
offer directly. 

“Yes, they might fit me,” Krebsfleisch glanced at 
the pantaloons thrown over a chair by the bed. Then 
he stood up and measured the length of the legs against 
his. “Perhaps a little tight around the calves, but 
they’ll do.” 

A few coppers jingled in the trouser-pockets. There 
was a questioning look in his eyes. 

“Yes, the contents goes with the trousers,” said 
Albert with seeming absentmindedness. 

Krebsfleisch at once removed his own tattered 
trousers unceremoniously and pulled on those offered 
him. 

“Your father must be very rich,” he was saying as 
he was stretching the waist line to fit his rotundity. 

“Very, very rich,” stammered Albert with a sad 
smile on his face. 

“And you never go hungry—not for a single day?” 

“No, not for mortal food,” Zorn intoned wistfully. 

“The other day,” Krebsfleisch said in a plaintive 
tone, “I did some copying for a rich idiot who took 
a notion into his head that he had a new theory about 
the universe. He paid me four silver Thalers! Yes, 
sir, I had four silver Thalers in the hollow of my hand 
and was on my way to Jagor’s to have a real spread— 
Braten and white bread and a bottle of wine—and in¬ 
vited two friends for the feast. On the way to the 
restaurant I met a fellow-student and we dropped into 
Lutter and Wegner’s for a drink. I don’t know how 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


217 


it happened but we both got drunk and when night 
came the four Thalers were gone. One of the stu¬ 
dents, who had been invited to the spread, waited for 
me at Jagor’s until midnight, and then he challenged 
me—that fool! Must I lose my life in addition to the 
loss of my four Thalers? I have no more chance of a 
dinner at Jagor’s,” he ended with an audible sigh. 
“Rich idiots with new theories do not grow on trees.” 

He rose and stretched his arms, with a downward 
look at his tightly fitting trousers. 

“Can you perchance spare a top coat to cover this 
misfit?” 

Yes, Albert had a top coat. It was hanging on a 
peg in the open closet. 

“A fur coat and a top coat! You are not related to 
the Rothschilds?” 

“Just distantly—the same as to the Prophets and 
to some of the Apostles.” 

The jest was lost on Krebsfleisch. 

Later in the day Albert hunted up a friend and 
borrowed five Louis d’or and then went to 20 Fried- 
richstrasse, where he announced to Frau Varnhagen 
von Ense that he had discovered a kindred spirit in 
the form of a starving genius. 

IV. 

Months passed. Albert began to tire of Berlin. 
Every phase of the city’s life, like the pages of a book 
conned too often, bored him. He yearned for idealism, 
for truth, and because he could find neither he began 
to scoff and blaspheme. Here, as elsewhere, sham and 
falsehood ruled life. Politics, religion, literature, phi¬ 
losophy—a veritable Tower of Babel, where no one 


218 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


understood the other and all were bent on building 
something colossal, eternal. When he had first arrived 
here his zeal for so many things was kindled, now it 
was waning, cooling, dying. He suffered the pain of 
lost illusions, and that at an age when most people 
commence to have illusions. Despite his keen mind 
he had not yet learned that no one can see truth and 
live—peacefully. And he not only saw the truth but 
he was unwise enough to shout it from the housetops. 
He always took the world into his confidence, without 
realizing that one who gives the world his confidence 
gets none in return. 

The scales were falling off his eyes. The Salon, the 
literary Bohemians—he saw the sham and sickly sen¬ 
timentality of it all! 

The Salon was but a nest of chattering parrots, 
where one repeated the phrases and syllogisms dropped 
by Goethe, by Herder, by Hegel, by Schelling. If these 
parrots had at least croaked their own tunes! 

He was still attending the Round Table at Lutter 
and Wegner’s on Charlottenstrasse, where the rising 
young poets were having heated debates on literary 
topics. Every one of them had his shoulders in readi¬ 
ness for the mantle of the Prophet of Weimar to fall 
upon him and every one thought everybody else a 
mere pretender. And when they were most animated, 
stimulated by drink and smoke, Albert sat in a corner, 
neither drinking nor smoking, a strange gleam in his 
narrowed eyes, and from time to time sent a shaft of 
irony or an arrow of wit through their web of fancy 
phrases. When he did argue his colleagues scented 
arrogance in his statements He had an unfortunate 
manner of belittling his opponents’ assertions and 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


219 


brushing them aside with a scoffing jest. They were 
talking of romanticism as if the period was only be- 
ginning^ while he was speaking of it as if it had ended. 
They persuaded themselves that dreams were realities 
while he only wished to clothe the sordidness of life in 
the garb of romance. When he persisted they could 
not see the difference. 

He was also at variance with them on political is¬ 
sues. They spoke of the radical democracy of Ludwig 
Borne while he believed in a democracy of Govern¬ 
ment based on justice, with an aristocracy of achieve¬ 
ment in all walks of life. When Krebsfleisch accused 
Albert of aristocratic tendencies he retorted that he 
had more respect for an industrious aristocrat than 
for a coarse, drunken, lazy plebian poet who abused 
the nobility at Lutter and Wegner’s and then went to 
his lodgings to write a cringing, begging letter to a 
son of the nobility. Krebsfleisch was silenced but had 
become Albert’s mortal enemy. Without direct accu¬ 
sation Albert had revealed Krebsfleisch to himself. 
When people told him that Krebsfleisch was slander¬ 
ing him he only smiled and said Krebsfleisch was a 
genius and geniuses never had any sense of gratitude. 

He again found himself almost alone, strolling along 
Unter den Linden, visiting cafes, reading, thinking 
suffering from headaches, and when in the throes of 
pain writing love songs. He wrote love songs be¬ 
cause he craved love and had it not. When he had no 
one to love he was dreaming of love. 





























. 




t 


. 






\ 









MIRIAM. 


I. 


T the end of that semester he was seized with a 



passion for work and decided to stay in Berlin 


the following summer vacation and devote all his 
time to the execution of his literary plans. His head was 
full of literary schemes. He again applied himself to an¬ 
other revision of his poetic drama; dashed off a tragedy; 
penned more Lieder; and also sketched a weird ro¬ 
mance with Venice as a background. He had just 
read Hoffmann’s “Die Elixiere des Teufels”, and was 
so influenced by its mystic charm that he was revolv¬ 
ing in his brain the plot of a tale with witches and 
spirits. He meant to take the world by. storm and at- 
attack it from many angles. 

But the fates always interfered with him, not only in 
his plans, the affairs of the heart but also in his literary 
pursuits. One day an admirer sought his acquaintance 
and became a worshipping friend. And he was a friend 
worth having. He was the sort of person Albert needed. 
He was a nobleman from Posen, a count with a genuine 
love for poetry; sympathetic, generous, young, hand¬ 
some and entertained liberal religious views, though 
a Catholic by birth. Besides, he was an accomplished 
musician and had composed music for a few of Albert's 
songs. Eager for recognition, chafing from the pub- 


221 


222 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


lie's neglect, the count's praise was an infusion of new 
courage. And the more the count praised his verses, 
the higher he rose in the author’s estimation. The 
count had become the “worthiest of mortals”, “a 
flower of purity”, the “embodiment of all that was 
good and noble”. 

Albert talked of the count to his friends, to his ac¬ 
quaintances, to strangers, and could not even resist 
the temptation of utilizing the count’s given name in 
his verses. Impetuous, influenced to love and hate at 
first sight, the count had won him completely. And 
what was even more precious in this nobleman, he 
possessed originality and wit—rare faculties among 
Albert's ponderous Berlin friends. So when the count 
invited him to his estate near Gnesen, Albert forgot 
his resolutions for an industrious summer and accom¬ 
panied him to Posen. 

He found his surroundings there a veritable poet’s 
dream. A palatial villa surrounded by extensive 
woods, luxuriant gardens, hundreds of acres of fertile 
fields, with a great forest badk of the estate, a water 
mill, and all that the heart could crave. Nor were 
coquettish maidens wanting. 

One day he met with a real adventure. He was 
alone, wandering through the narrow filthy streets of 
Gnesen, the town close by. The little town presented 
a strange sight to him. It looked medieval. Unpaved, 
without sidewalks, pulverized mud in the streets, the 
houses of heavy logs, unpainted, and strawthatched 
and black with age ,with grotesque looking people in 
the doorways or seated on earthen stoops extending 
across the whole front of the house. The peasants 
wore the national costume of unbleached linen coats 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


223 


without sleeves, with a colored girdle fastened around 
the waist, and trousers tucked in top-boots. 

It was near sunset, the sun was sinking in a mist of 
gold and indigo and lustrous copper, the cows were 
returning from pasture through the main street to the 
resounding pistol-like echoes of the shepherd’s long 
whip and to his exasperating shouts of “Whoa!” 

Albert strolled along aimlessly, listening to the un¬ 
intelligible jabber of the people around him, only now 
and then catching a word of their jargon. 

He soon reached the market-place. It was deserted. 
Now and then a door opened, and a bar of a raucous 
song was heard. Then silence. A drunken peasant, 
lying on his back in the dust near a dram shop, was 
hiccoughing a love song, but soon his voice was 
hushed, too. Silence again. The last rays of the dying 
sun rested like a halo around the head of the Christ 
upon the tall black crucifix in the centre of the market 
place. Albert was about to turn in the direction of 
his host’s villa when his attention was arrested by a 
girl, who emerged from a narrow passageway that 
branched off the market place. In her hand was a 
large jug and she was on her way to the Marktbrun- 
nen. He recalled a scene in Mesopotamia, in the city 
of Nahof. The scene appeared to him as if he had 
actually seen it in his childhood. It was distant but 
vivid. He visualized all Biblical scenes. This damsel 
too, was “very fair to look upon, and she went down 
to the well.” But it was harder to draw the water 
here than in Mesopotamia of old. The well was very 
deep and the frame above the ground was of round 
logs, which were mossy and wet and dripping, and 
there were puddles of water between the stones 


224 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


around the well. At a straight line from the centre 
of the well a perpendicular heavy pole was suspended 
from a long beam high above, and to the bottom of 
the suspended pole was attached an iron-hooped pail, 
which one was obliged to lower into the deep well, 
plunge it into the black looking water, and then with 
the aid of the balancing beam, bring up the pail. 

Albert approached the well as the girl had gripped 
the pole and began to lower it while the beam above 
was creaking resistance. He remained standing across 
the well, looking straight at this Rebekah, but she 
seemed unconscious of his presence. 

“May I help you?” 

A scarcely perceptible frown on her dark face was 
the only response and the grip on the pole tightened. 
In Gnesen young men offered no assistance to girls 
at the well. A deep gurgle from the depths, a frog¬ 
like grunt, and soon the pail was balanced on the top 
log of the well. As she filled her jug and turned to 
leave her eyes never betrayed the least knowledge 
that a young man was eagerly watching every move 
and gesture of hers; only the brown of her cheeks 
seemed of a deeper warmth and her gait lacked the 
ease which had marked her steps on her way to the 
well. 

Following at a respectable distance he soon found 
himself in an uneven, unpaved, open space, to the right 

of which was an edifice of unmistakable character_ 

the simplicity of structure, the indefinable gloom hover¬ 
ing over it, the long arched windows, told him that 
this was a house of prayer—and to the left was a row 
of dingy houses, with high stoops. 

The girl cut diagonally across the large courtyard. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


225 


mounted a high wooden porch, and when she entered 
the house closed the door with a slam that resounded 
throughout the square. Albert stood and looked at the 
two windows for a while. No face appeared at either 
of them. 

He took a step nearer the house which the girl had 
entered. It was a humble hut, a one-story affair 
painted by Mother Nature in drab colors with streaks 
of black rot and dabs of yellow, where the decay was 
dry and worm-eaten and crumbling powder. 

That evening the gay assemblage at the count’s lost 
interest for Albert. His friend teased him about his 
sudden fit of melancholy and made guesses as to whose 
darted arrows had pierced the poet’s heart. The count 
was certain it was the flaxen haired Katinka to whom 
Albert had read his verses earlier in the day; and he 
rather liked his guest’s sudden fit of melancholy. Since 
he had a lion under his roof he wanted him to roar. 

The next day Albert was again at the Marktbrunnen 
but he saw only shambling men and slovenly women 
come to draw water. He could think of no means 
of reaching the object of his search. His brain was 
very active but he had no mind for scheming; neither 
in real life nor in literary plots. He could only add 
color to reality, invent he could not. 

In his present restlessness he turned to literature. 
He was planning a descriptive essay on Poland and 
discussed with his host the status of the peasantry. 
When he touched upon the condition of the Polish Jews, 
the count said, “The Jews of Gnesen count me as their 
best friend.” 

He spoke rather tenderly, almost affectionately, of 
“his Jews”. 


226 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“You might follow in the footsteps of Casimir the 
Great and take a Jewish Esther for your wife/' jested 
Albert. 

“The Jewish Esther of Gnesen would spurn a Cas¬ 
imir the Great,” laughed the Count. “I have carried 
on flirtations with many a Jewish innkeeper’s daughter 
but Miriam is adamant.” 

“Who is Miriam?” 

“The rabbi’s daughter. She is the prettiest and 
sweetest girl I have ever laid my eyes on.” 

After a space he added, “By the way, I always pay 
my respects to the rabbi when I come here in the 
summer and I should like you to meet him. We have 
quite a time in understanding each other. He speaks 
almost no Polish and my German is beyond him, so 
Miriam often acts as our interpreter.” 

A few days later the count’s carriage stopped before 
a dilapidated little house near the synagogue. Albert 
was with the count and his heart beat tumultuously 
as he recognized the high wooden porch. They were 
soon knocking at the door. 

People in Gnesen did not usually knock on people’s 
doors. They just opened them and walked in. 

They knocked again and again without response until 
the beadle, who happened to pass by, saw the dignitary 
at the rabbi’s door and hurried to the rear of the house, 
pushed the door open unceremoniously, and burst out, 
“Miriam, der Graf !” 

Miriam was bent over a copper pot which she was 
polishing. 

Miriam dropped the pot and, rushing up to her 
father, exclaimed, “Der Graf!” 

The rabbi, with a velvet skull-cap on his head, deep 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


227 


creases in his high, broad forehead, was swaying his 
body and pondering over some knotty problem in the 
Talmud. 

“Der Graf?” he asked as if suddenly awakened from 
a profound sleep. “Quick, fetch me my Sabbath coat.” 

The next moment the rabbi, arrayed in his long silk 
Sabbath caftan, with a large round fur cap on his head, 
stood at the open door, courtesying and welcoming the 
Graf. And while the rigid laws of the Polish Jewry 
forbade such familiarity between the opposite sexes 
Miriam clasped the count’s extended hand and also 
shook hands with his companion. Albert looked fixedly 
at Miriam but beyond a pretty blush could detect no 
recognition of their former meeting. 

In introducing his friend, the count mentioned the 
fact that Albert was a poet, but that made no impres¬ 
sion upon the rabbi. The rabbi considered it a sin 
to waste ink and paper on anything save a Biblical or 
Talmudic treatise or upon songs glorifying the Al¬ 
mighty. 

Miriam soon withdrew to the adjoining room, but the 
door between the rooms was open and Albert stole 
glances into the next chamber. She was paying no at¬ 
tention to his glances. Her eyes were downcast, though 
her face was turned toward him. Only once, when 
Albert used a Hebrew word in addressing her father, 
did she raise her eyes inquiringly and then dropped 
them quickly as if she were displeased at something. 

Albert expected a sign of cordiality when he in¬ 
formed the rabbi that they were of the same race but 
instead he felt increased coldness—the hospitality was 
now only extended to the Graf. 


228 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

When they rose to leave Miriam stepped into the 
room and bade them goodbye. Albert wondered if she 
understood that the second meeting was not wholly ac¬ 
cidental. He was determined that she should under¬ 
stand this. 

II. 

Love teaches subterfuge. The young poet soon found 
a pretext to pay another visit at the home of the rab¬ 
bi. He was taking notes for an article on Poland 
and came to the rabbi for first hand information. 

This time the rabbi seemed more cordial. The ab¬ 
sence of the count made Albert, too, feel more at 
ease. They discussed the misery of the Jews in Poland 
more freely. Besides, Albert quoted a few Biblical 
verses and that seemed a welcome password. When 
he repeated some of the eloquent phrases of Zunz on 
the martyrdom of Israel and spoke with poetic feeling 
of Jewish antiquity the rabbi’s eyes glowed with a 
strange light and there was a warmth on his bearded 
countenance. 

After the next visit Albert was at his wit’s end. 
He was making rapid progress with the rabbi but not 
with his daughter. A glance, a blush, a rapid move¬ 
ment of the lashes, but no communication. Jewish 
daughters in Gnesen did not chat with young men 
callers. But luck is usually on the side of lovers. 
When he called again the rabbi was away. 

“I wished to ask your father about something con¬ 
cerning the Jews in Poland,” he was stammering, eyeing 
with delight the changing tints in her cheeks. "‘Per¬ 
haps I could write to him about it.” 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


229 


“My father doesn’t read German,” Miriam said, 
catching her breath as if apologizing for his ignorance. 

“Do you?” 

“Yes,” and she again caught her breath. 

Her mother stood at a respectful distance, pride in 
her eyes. It was through her tolerance that Miriam 
had learned to read and write German unbeknown to 
her father. 

Albert’s eyes sparkled. A thought sped through his 
brain. Producing a slip of paper he wrote: “Like 
King Saul I came here to look for the asses and found 
a kingdom. Dare I hope that you might meet me at two 
o’clock tomorrow afternoon inside the second gate of 
Dzyalin ? Until tomorrow. 

Albert Zorn.” 

“See if you can read my handwriting,” he said as 
he handed her the note. 

She read it, blushed scarlet, grew confused, and 
raised her eyelashes with a helpless look on her face. 
He did not offer to shake hands with her, having be¬ 
come confused himself, and left the house. 


III. 

Dzyalin, the count’s estate was half an hour’s walk 
from the heart of the Gnesen. On Saturdays and 
summer evenings the gates were open and the town 
people were allowed to promenade through the wooded 
paths and the tree-lined winding alleys. The grounds 
were entered through a narrow portal and after passing 
the spacious courtyard, around which were located 


230 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


several imposing homes of the manager and his assist¬ 
ants, there was a tall iron gate which led to two broad 
shaded lanes. The one to the right led to the count’s 
castle and the one turning left was open to the public. 
The latter extended over more than a mile, rows of 
Lombardy poplars on either side, like sentinels on 
guard, and came to a sudden halt at the dam, which 
held the streams in check for the water mill. For 
farther left was a narrow river, beyond which spread 
the count’s vegetable gardens and grain fields. 

Albert was at the designated spot ahead of time, 
and when he spied her in the distance he ran toward 
her with an extended hand but she overlooked it and 
remained standing stock still, pale, shy, trembling. Her 
cheeks looked almost bloodless for a moment and her 
eyes, which he had thought were jet black, were of 
a sapphire blue and devoid of all animation. A dark 
cashmere shawl, which had covered her head, had 
slipped to her shoulders, and the tassels at the ends 
were gathered in her clasped hands, with an expression 
of stunned fright on her face. 

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he mumbled. 

She drew a long breath, her hands clinching the tas¬ 
sels in her hands, and a film of mist appeared in her 
dark-blue eyes. 

“Some one might see me,” she muttered in a fret¬ 
ful voice and a frown of agony appeared on her coun¬ 
tenance. 

They moved back of the row of poplars, where the 
ground sloped toward the river, screened by shrubs 
and bushy willows. 

He soon made her forget her fears. He began to 
ask her questions about the people in Gnesen, about 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


231 


herself, but she would not talk about herself. She 
wanted him to tell her about Berlin, of which she 
had heard so much. She sighed. She was tired of 
Gnesen and the people here. There was nothing new 
in Gnesen. The same gloom day after day, week after 
week, year after year. Ah, for a glimpse of Berlin! 

He made attempts to console her. Her naivete, 
her ignorance of the world, her simplicity, her artless¬ 
ness, her evident truthfulness charmed him. She had 
never been outside the little town, and she was in her 
eighteenth year. She entertained strange notions of 
what a large city was like, and wished she could go to 
one—she would go anywhere to escape the tedium of 
Gnesen. 

They were now seated in the screening shade of a 
clump of willows on one side and on the other were 
the bushy shrubs through which one caught only in¬ 
termittent glimpses of the flowing stream below. Now 
and then were heard the quaint songs of the peasant 
women in the fields—Polish folk songs—the piping 
of a swineherd in the distance, the barking of a dog, 
the shrill drilling sound of the locust. He sat on the 
ground opposite Miriam, listening to her wistfully, 
catching the enchanting melodies around him, and look¬ 
ing, with narrowed eyes, at the beautiful maiden be¬ 
fore him. There was an exhaling purity about her. 
Sheltered by her mother's rigorous virtue she was like 
a soft-colored wild flower surrounded by high woods, 
never scorched by the burning rays of the sun, never 
harrassed by gusts of cold winds. As he looked at her 
appealing dark-blue eyes with those exquisite long 
black eyelashes, her rich black hair combed straight 
back from her low, square forehead, and the faintest 


232 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


dimple in her chin, there was a strange sentiment in 
his heart. He was conscious of a desire to rest his 
hands upon her bowed head-—barely touching itr—as 
did the Jews of old, and murmur a prayer and a bles¬ 
sing that God may guard her sweet purity. 

“You ought to be glad to be away from large 
cities,” he endeavored to cheer her. “Here you have 
treasures Berlin could never give you.” 

He halted. A finch dropped a few sweet notes 
and sailed away, and then the chattering crickets ac¬ 
centuated the silence around them. 

“Ah! you don’t understand—you don’t understand—” 
she was saying, sadness spreading over her face. 

She was playing with the tassels of her cashmere 
shawl absentmindedly. She could not explain what 
he did not understand, for she did not quite fully un¬ 
derstand herself beyond the fact that she was weary 
of Gnesen. Life in Gnesen was a perpetual “You must 
not. Being a rabbi’s daughter more things were for¬ 
bidden her than other girls. And the sudden appear¬ 
ance of this elegantly dressed young man, with his 
intent eyes upon her, his charming voice and pure 
German speech, made her conscious of her circum¬ 
scribed, narrow, drab existence with all its dinginess. 
Strange feelings had been stirring in her the past year 
or two but they only made her restless, without re¬ 
vealing to her, her inner desires. Recently she had 
overheard her mother complain that her father was 
not active enough to procure a husband for their 
daughter and the rabbi murmured that “the good Lord 
would provide.” Miriam trembled at the thought of 
marriage; a repulsive feeling came over her at the 
mere mention of it. Marriage in Gnesen meant shaving 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


233 


off her beautiful tresses and exchanging them for the 
detestable wig; it meant—she shuddered—the drudgery 
of married life in poverty. 

On the day she caught a glimpse of Albert at the 
well she went home with her heart a-flutter. He was 
so unlike the young men in Gnesen. She had not 
thought he belonged to her people but his dreamy, 
intent look had not escaped her despite her seeming 
inattentiveness. No one had looked at her in the 
manner of this stranger. 

The evening of their first meeting she remained 
seated on the steps of the porch, with her elbows on 
her knees, her pensive face between her hands, musing; 
at times her breasts heaved, though she knew not why. 
Her musing was interrupted by the approach of her 
father and Shloma, the marriage-broker. The two 
were conversing in a low confidential tone. She knew 
the topic of their conversation. The day before her 
father had been telling her mother that Shloma was 
proposing a suitable young man for Miriam. He 
mentioned his name. Miriam trembled. She had never 
spoken with the young man but she knew him by sight, 
an ungainly young man. When her father and the 
marriage-broker came near the porch Miriam went into 
the house and retired. She spent a troubled night, 
with a heart full of sorrow, and in the back of her 
brain was the picture of a young man, slender, hand¬ 
somely dressed, with light-brown hair, and eyes that 
made her heart flutter. 

When she beheld the stranger in the company of the 
count her heart stood still for a second and the blood 
rushed to her face. To Miriam the day of miracles 
had not yet passed. All her life she had heard of noth- 


234 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


ing but miracles. Her dreams were not of knights 
and princes but of the thousands of miracles God had 
performed for her people. 

After Albert and the count had left Miriam threw 
her cashmere shawl over her head and took a long 
walk, to the very end of the town. She was not think¬ 
ing of the stranger. She was not thinking of any¬ 
thing. Only her head was thumping and she was 
restless. 

During Albert’s next visit Miriam sat in the adjoin¬ 
ing room and drank in every word, every syllable. 
She loved to listen to his voice, to his pure German, 
and frequently blushed at the comical attempts of her 
father to make his patois sound Germanic. She hoped 
the young man would come again. 

Then the miracle happened. The young man called 
when her father was away and he handed her that 
note. She cherished the scrap of paper and secretly 
read it over again and again. She did not hesitate 
about going to meet him but she trembled with fear. 
In her innocence the thought that she was running any 
risk never occurred to her until she had reached the 
meeting place. 

On her departure from their first secret meeting 
she readily agreed to come the following day. She 
wanted to hear more of the great city where the 
streets were paved and lit by lamps at night. She 
naively asked him what street he lived on and when 
he told her she asked him to put the address on a piece 
of paper. Then she made a new discovery; the houses 
in Berlin were numbered! In Gnesen the houses needed 
no numbers. One knew the occupants of all the houses 
and instead of numbers, there were little descriptive 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


235 


signs over the doors, indicating what each owner must 
furnish in case of fire. The picture of a ladder was 
above the door of one house, that of an axe over an¬ 
other, and there were sketches—not very graphic—of 
long hooks and pails and besoms, and, in fact, of all 
the instruments of the Gnesen fire brigade. 

During one of their clandestine meetings Albert re¬ 
mained seated on the ground, his hands around his 
knee, staring at her as if. she/were a work of art 
which aroused his innermost admiration. 

Tears of ecstasy were in his eyes as he continued 
looking at her in silence. 

The past three years Albert had learned considerably 
about the lure of sex—sensuality was no longer an un¬ 
solved mystery to him—but though Miriam drew him 
toward her with a thousand invisible chains he was 
conscious of an inner fear—the fear of touching a 
sacred shrine—whenever he touched her cashmere 
shawl or passed his hand, ever so lightly, over her 
sleeves, or when he clasped her hand in parting. 

Miriam looked up at him and for a moment let her 
eyes rest upon his sensitive face. She did not under¬ 
stand the meaning of the mist in his eyes but she was 
conscious of an overwhelming desire to touch him, to 
let her hand rest upon his. 

This was the first touch of romance in the young 
girl’s life, the first conscious awakening of the myster¬ 
ious being within her. It was the first tiny opening of 
the bursting bud, the first petal catching the light of the 
sun, though its warmth had long before penetrated it. 
She thought of nothing save the irresistible sweetness 
of sitting under the willow tree with this young 
stranger. He seemed a mystery to her, part of the 


236 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


mystery of the great world, of which she knew nothing. 
The boundaries of her world were the bluish tree tops 
on the horizon to the left of Gnesen and the dome of 
the cathedral to the right. And it was midsummer 
and the Fearful Days—-as the group of holidays at the 
end of summer were symbolically, named—were soon at 
hand. Sadness! sadness! sadness! as if life in Gnesen 
was not sad enough without fasts, without heartrending 
lamentations, without wailing and praying and tortur¬ 
ing of the flesh. 

“I can't meet you tomorrow," she said one day as 
they parted. 

“And why not?" he inquired eagerly. 

“Don’t you know what tomorrow is?” 

He shook his head. 

A strange expression stole over her face. Her eyes 
contracted, there was a deep dent between her eyebrows, 
and she stared at him as if sudden fear possessed her. 

So it is not true," she muttered in a husky voice, 
“that you are a Jew." 

Albert threw his head back and laughed. 

“Too much of a Jew, Miriam—too much of one to 
be left in peace." The sunny smile now vanished from 
his eyes, the deep corners of his mouth drooped and 
twitched, the wing of melancholy brushed his flushed 
cheeks. Why do you doubt it?" He again made an 
attempt at smiling. 

You couldn't be a Jew without knowing that tomor¬ 
row is a Jewish holiday!" 

He looked puzzled at her. He did not observe 
Jewish holidays. 

However, she soon yielded and promised to come. 

The next day they were seated in their secluded 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


237 


place, Albert reciting a song he had written the night 
before. He told her that if he had not met her the 
song would not have been written. 

There were tears in his eyes; he uttered the last 
verse in a whisper almost, and then silence. The day 
was hot, without the slightest breeze; nothing stirred, 
not even the drooping feather-like boughs of the willow 
overhead. 

Suddenly the sound of footsteps behind them ar¬ 
rested their attention. A tall, red-bearded, round- 
faced man was staring at them as if frightened by an 
apparition. He was Getzel the Beadle. 

Miriam leaped up and like a frightened deer, sped 
through the bushes before Albert had fully realized 
what had happened. 

He waited but she did not return. He called at the 
same place the next day and the next but she did not 
appear. Each new love was a first love to him, only 
it lashed his soul with greater fury. Ah! the shades 
of the past, they were nothing more than a memory to 
him now. The wilted flower of yesterday is always 
forgotten when the perfume of the living one is wafted 
into our nostrils. No one was like Miriam. There 
never was any other woman as sweet as Miriam. His 
whole being yearned for her. Hedwiga, Hilda, Eu¬ 
genie—they were all fancies—but Miriam—everything 
swam before his feverish eyes as he thought of her. 
Nothing in life mattered any more—nothing! He tried 
to see her at her home—to tell her parents of his love 
for their daughter, but. the rabbi, like Eugenie’s father, 
shut the door in his face. 

He suddenly awoke from his poet’s dream. He saw 


238 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

nothing but abject misery around him. He could no 
longer share in his host’s gayety. 


IV. 

He curtailed his visit and returned to Berlin heavy 
of heart, saddened beyond endurance. His short-lived 
romance intensified his bitterness against the rulers of 
Poland. He hurried to Rahel. He knew no one would 
understand his present woe as well as that all-wise wo¬ 
man. She was not only his literary critic but also his 
priestess, to whom he confessed everything. And with 
that sage smile on her refined intellectual features she 
knew how to console, how to tender sympathy, and 
listened with genuine concern. 

He buried himself in work again but he could not 
forget his love for Miriam and with it came the 
depressing memory of Poland. All his innate slumber¬ 
ing passions for justice, for liberty, were aroused to 
a white heat. Unlike Balaam of old, he had gone to 
Poland to bless and returned cursing. Why should 
he care for personal friendships? WLy think of self¬ 
ish advantage ? Why consider what a hypocritical 
society might call poor manners? Like the seers of 
old he was bidden to speak, and he seized his pen 
and told the truth as he saw it regardless of all con¬ 
sequences. 

This essay was the first gun that he fired in the 
liberation of the Junker-nddtn people. For his caustic 
utterances not only revealed the tyranny of the Polish 
nobles but also silhouetted the hideous forms of the 
Junkers ; the censor who had pruned away every trace 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


239 


of humor from the article, unwittingly failed to strike 
out a sentence fraught with danger. 

His first political pronouncement proved a veritable 
boomerang. It was too daring, too pointed, too truth¬ 
ful. He learned that even in letters, no less than in 
the drawingroom, truth must be masked, if not alto¬ 
gether suppressed. His acquaintances of rank looked 
at him askance, his Polish friend and patron shunned 
him, Prussian officials took notice of him. Even 
Rahel, herself a passionate lover of truth and no 
friend of Junkerdom, advised caution. And when she 
tried to give him the wisdom of her experience, he 
only grew peevish and said he was no diplomat and 
did not wish to be one, and that truth was to be his 
only guide in life. 

He found himself at odds with everybody. He had 
anticipated applause but instead met with hostility and 
condemnation. 

His cultured Jewish friends, too, took offense at this 
essay. In speaking of the pitiful conditions of his co- 
racials in Poland he spoke disparagingly of the ele¬ 
gantly dressed Berliners. He had ironically made a 
comparison between the exterior of the ungainly Polish 
Jew, with a heart beating for freedom, and the elegant 
Berliner, whose head was filled with the silly roman¬ 
ticism of the period, with nothing but vanity in his 
heart. 


V. 

One winter evening as he was brooding over his 
sad plight his landlady informed him that some one 
wanted to see him. 


240 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

“I don’t want to see anybody—leave me alone!” he 
finally cried irritably. 

“I’ve tried to send her away but she insists on see¬ 
ing you—she has come all the way from Poland to 
see you,” came the landlady’s voice through the closed 
door. 

He jumped up from his bed. He could not even 
guess who this intruder might be but the word Poland 
w’as magic to him, and it was a “she”! Perhaps it 
was an admirer from that fateful land. The hope of 
an admirer stirred romance in his soul. He wondered 
which of his scattered songs had found an echo in the 
heart of a Polish admirer. Yes, he was becoming 
famous! The stray children of his brain were travel¬ 
ing far. He opened the door with a flush of joy on 
his face. 

He rushed downstairs to the sitting-room, dimly 
lighted by a tallow candle. By the door stood a 
slender girl shivering with cold. He took a step 
closer to her. 

“Miriam!” he cried. 

She rushed up to him, tears welling in her luminous 
dark-blue eyes. 

“How did you get here?” 

His joy and confusion were bewildering. 

I had your address so I came here,” she murmured 
in the tone of a helpless child. 

He made her sit down and tell him how she had 
happened to leave Gnesen. 

The Beadle had told her father about her and also 
communicated the scandal to the rest of the community. 
A committee called on her father and urged that she 
be sent away from town lest the other girls, might be 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


241 


contaminated. The father had almost yielded when 
his wife prevailed upon him to allow the disgraced 
daughter to remain at home. But there was no more 
chance of getting Miriam married. Who would have 
her now? Life had become unbearable for the poor 
girl. However, the resourceful marriage-broker had 
soon found a way out of the dilemma. He knew of a 
young man, a drover’s son, in a village nearby, who 
was willing to have Miriam in spite of the stigma. 
When Miriam was told of the match she seemed in¬ 
different. But two days after the bethrothal—it was 
on a Saturday morning when her parents were at ser¬ 
vices—Miriam went to her mother’s bed, lifted the 
heavy feather-bed, and removed from underneath a 
little packet which contained the family savings for 
her dowry and trousseau, and unobserved made her 
way out of town. After many days of travel by foot 
and by coach, she reached her destination, clutching 
in her hand the address that Albert had scribbled on 
a piece of paper. 

“And at last I’m near you,” she said with a heaving 
sigh as she concluded her simple narrative, her eyes 
turning appealingly upon her perplexed lover. 

Albert at once thought of Rahel. He must go to 
her and place his predicament before her. He was 
helpless. 

Rahel was not only helpful but magnanimous. She 
received Miriam into her home, clothed her in dresses 
that were then in vogue, and shared the thrill of ro¬ 
mance. Though she had often bandied Albert about 
his peculiar notions of feminine beauty she was forced 
to admit that Miriam was adorable. In her Berlin 


242 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


attire no one would have taken her for a native of 
Gnesen. Her innate modesty, her truthfulness, her 
sweet temper, her want of city mannerisms, fascinated 
the woman of the world surfeited with the artifices 
of society. 

At first even Frau Varnhagen, with all her bitter 
experiences of her younger days, did not think of 
the consequences of the present situation. She only 
thought of the poor girl’s plight, of the poet’s love, 
of the sweet romance acted before her eyes. To her 
it was an idyl of rare charm. 

But before long the sordid facts stared her in the 
face. When she spoke of this to the lover he saw 
no problem in it at all. 

“Why, I love her as I've never loved anybody in the 
world,” he burst out impulsively. 

Rahel, leaning back in her fanteil, her hand thought¬ 
fully raised to her temple, looked enviously at the 
dreamy youth. She caught the rapture of his soul. 
To love, and be loved, like this! 

“But, my dear Zorn, what good will come of her 
indefinite stay here—to what end?” 

“Why, I'll marry her, of course, I’ll marry her,” 
he spoke impulsively. 

Frau Varnhagen leaned forward and smiled indul¬ 
gently. She wondered if he ever would grow up. 
He was already twenty-five and in many ways a mere 
child. 

“One needs money to support a wife—love alone 
is not enough.” She paused. She would not intimate 
that he was living on the charity of his uncle and 
that he was heavily in debt to many of his friends. 
Then she added, “It’ll be several years before either 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


24 3 


your pen or your jurisprudence will crystallize into 
Louis d’ors. What will become of this beautiful flower 
in the meantime—what will become of Miriam ?” 

But while Frau Varnhagen was attempting to put 
reason into the poet’s mind she directed the course 
of the fates more successfully. She called the count 
and counselled with him. Shortly thereafter, the rab¬ 
bi came to Berlin and the count interceded between 
father and daughter; and before Albert was aware 
Miriam had disappeared. 

Poor Albert Zorn! What were Werthe/s Leiden 
compared with his? Werther had only sorrows of love 
to bear, but he, indeed, like another Atlas, was bend¬ 
ing under the weight of a whole globe of sorrows. 
The Weltschmerz was gnawing at his heart. The furies 
of a thousand storms were lashing him at once. Dis¬ 
appointment everywhere! No appreciative public, no 
one would look at his poetic drama, at his tragedy; 
his essay on Poland had only provoked his enemies 
without a word of praise from his friends; and his 
love-dream—the sweetest dream of life—shattered. 
And, then, the Judenhetze was corroding his heart. 
Like Frau Varnhagen, he wished to dismiss the mem¬ 
ory of his birth but he could not. Rahel was a phil¬ 
osopher, not a poet, her life was dominated by will¬ 
power, but he was only mere gossamer driven by the 
cruel winds. He could reason even more clearly than 
Rahel, but reason did not calm his sensitive nerves, 
did not quiet his raging blood. 

He had grown weary of Berlin. He wanted to 
flee. Everybody here reminded him of his unbearable 
sorrows. He was weary of Prussia and Prussianism 
and wished he could leave the land of his birth. Like 


244 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


one suffering from defective lungs, he blamed the air 
for his hard breathing. The present air was stifling 
him. He had intimated to his uncle that he wished to 
leave Germany and go to England or America or 
France but Uncle Leopold would not listen to such 
a proposition. Uncle Leopold felt that since he was 
paying the fiddler it was his privilege to dictate the 
dances. The banker felt that jurisprudence was the 
only hope for his incorrigible nephew. 

However, he decided to leave Berlin. Here he 
could not give his undivided attention to his studies 
because of many diversions. He realized that while 
he was a law student he was giving too much time 
to Hegel’s lectures on philosophy and to the reading of 
belles lettres. He would never complete his law course 
that way. Yes, he must return to that “scholarly hole” 
of Goetttingen, though he shuddered as he remembered 
that college town. 

He left Berlin with no regrets in his heart. 


THE MARCH TO CALVARY. 


I. 

E VEN the wisest often fail to realize that one 
cannot escape one’s shadow. Albert Zorn 
imagined that ennui was in Berlin but it was 
only in his own soul. 

He found Goettingen as depressing as before. The 
college town was covered with snow, the students 
seemed grim and serious, the professors cold, and he 
found but few of his old friends. He arrived here 
as a prodigal son, misgivings in his heart. He recalled 
the Abschiedskarten he had sent to the members of the 
faculty a few years before, after his suspension. He 
now realized that the mockery, witty as it might have 
been, that those Abschiedskarten contained had not en¬ 
deared him to his old instructors. And the students 
seemed so sulky. Prussian tyranny had conquered and 
killed every manifestation of free speech. The Bur- 
schenschaft and the Turngemeinde —the two most sig¬ 
nificant fraternities—were but names. The students 
not only feared their owii utterances but even the un¬ 
guarded speech of their friends. And they had not 
forgotten Albert’s unguarded tongue. 

But while the dullness of the place depressed him 
he welcomed the quiet of his lodging house on the 
245 


246 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Rothenstrasse. He gave himself to the study of the 
law, and “corpus juris” was his “pillow”. He had no 
difficulty in hushing the muse’s voice, for the muse 
sang not. For a time he passed a prosaic existence, 
and while he frequently shuddered at the thought he 
again wondered if his light had not burned out. His 
verses scarcely stirred in him more than memories. 
And when he made attempts at writing he was con¬ 
scious of the effort, of the lack of spontaneity, and 
dropped it. Was he a Samson with his locks shorn? 
He stirred and often went to the Rathskeller to drown 
his sorrow, but unable to bear drink he turned to the 
library. 

Soon March drew to an end, the winter was gone, 
the thawing season began. Everything within him was 
thawing, too. His blood suddenly began to course 
warmer; there was agitation in his breast; his nerves 
seemed on fire. A chance acquaintanceship had in¬ 
spired him to write a few lyric stanzas. He laughed 
like a mocking satan. Indeed his light had not yet 
burned out! It had just commenced to burn and 
would soon redden the sky with its rising flames. Let 
his enemies in Berlin and Hamburg sneer! What did 
he care? He had nothing but contempt for the mul¬ 
titude anyhow. They should see! He flung the law 
books aside and took up an unfinished poem. Byron’s 
recent death stimulated his energies. Byron was the 
only man to whom he felt a close kinship, and the 
poet’s death affected him deeply. He must take By¬ 
ron’s place; he would be Germany’s Byron. 

Spurred by these thoughts and feelings his dullness 
fled; his imagination was again volatile; his tongue 
was once more caustic. He was again seen in the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


247 


beer cellars, arguing, jesting, making sport in his 
whimsical manner. The students again gathered 
around him and goaded him on to saying bitter things 
about their professors, their pedantic colleagues, the 
Prussian officials. He had the gift of caricature in 
words. He became his old self again. He was the 
very life of all student affairs, and at their frequent 
duels he was either a second or umpire. He was a 
Byron with a vengeance. He once more took up fenc¬ 
ing and fought a duel or two. 

Ah! they should see—his enemies at Berlin and 
Hamburg. They might call him a Jew, but what of 
that? He became heroic. Race pride swelled in his 
breast. He was of the race “of which Gods are 
kneaded”, of the race that needed no apologies, even 
in his day. Who was there in Germany to take the 
place of the great who had passed? The Teuton gods 
were dead! Lessing was gone, so was Schiller, and 
Goethe, like King David in his old age, “got no heat”; 
this old Jupiter was no more hurling thunderbolts; his 
arm was even too feeble to fling pebbles. Who were 
to take the places of these gods ? A number of 
Schmetterlinge —mere butterflies—waving their colorful 
wings in the sunshine and hovering around the blos¬ 
soming shrubs, with an old bumble bee here and there, 
without sting, without honey, buzzing around a rose¬ 
bush. Yes, who were to take the place of the dead 
heroes? Who was to take Goethe’s place? His 
blood warmed at the thought. The mantle of this 
great bard must fall on his own shoulders. Nay more, 
he would undo many of the things the great Romanti¬ 
cist had done. He would be to his generation what 
Goethe had been to his. Indeed, he would even go 


248 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


farther than Goethe. Goethe was self-centered, con¬ 
tent with his own pleasure, playing with the beautiful 
thoughts as a juggler plays with balls, but he would 
give his life and genius to Germany. Goethe never 
loved the Germans, he mused, but he would liberate the 
Teutonic mind from its self-imposed imprisonment. 
Ay, indeed, he would wield a weapon mightier than 
the sword in the cause of liberty! Let his enemies 
rave- 

But with Albert Zorn there was even less than a 
step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The next 
moment he laughed at his own heroics. He understood 
the heroics of those that smarted under the whips of 
injustice. The irony of his own situation struck him 
forcibly. He was humorous and great enough to laugh 
at himself. Did he not feel a secret pride when his 
admirers told him that there was not a trace of the 
Semite in his face; that his nose, though longish, was 
Grecian ? No, Albert could not deceive himself. He 
saw the tragi-comedy of it all. To be heroic in one’s 
thoughts was one thing and to be heroic in one’s ac¬ 
tions quite a different matter. 

But here at Goettingen his fellow-students never 
reminded him of his birth, and even the professors 
had accepted the prodigal son rather graciously. And 
he had a circle of admirers among the literary guild. 
To be sure, there was petty jealousy among them, 
but they did not disturb him. Talent must expect 
jealousy, he reflected soothingly; only the feeble and 
the dead arouse no jealousy. 

Indeed, Albert was now his true self. He pursued 
his studies regularly, read much, and, as a diversion, 
made love to a pretty damsel or argued heatedly with 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


249 


a few of his fellow-students. The problems that oc¬ 
cupied his mind while at Berlin troubled him no longer. 
When summer vacation came, instead of spending it 
with his parents, he took journeys on foot, with a knap¬ 
sack on his back, through the Hartz Mountains, visit¬ 
ing Halle and Jena and Gotha and Eisenach, and mak¬ 
ing mental notes of the beautiful scenery around him 
and of the people with whom he came in contact. He 
also paid a visit to Goethe, and found, to his astonish¬ 
ment, that this Jupiter “understood German”—though 
he was prompted to address the god in Greek—so in 
his confusion he told him that the plums on the way 
from Jena to Weimar were very, very delicious . . . 


II. 

After the summer vacation he returned to Goettin¬ 
gen refreshed and encouraged. On his pilgrimage he 
had learned that while he was still unknown, many of 
his songs were gaining popularity. In one of the 
taverns a pretty waitress hummed one of his love 
songs. 

Everything now moved so smoothly; the professors 
were so kind to him, the dean of the Faculty had in¬ 
vited him to his home and expressed admiration for 
his ballads—he had compared them to Goethe’s—and 
the old inner struggles had left him entirely. In a 
friendly talk the Dean had hinted that there was a great 
future for him if—the learned gentleman was kind 
and sensitive and hesitated—“if”—he stammered again. 

“If I were not a Jew,” Albert came to the rescue, 
an ironic smile on his face. 


250 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“Yes,” the kindly man intoned. “You see,” he con¬ 
tinued, “sooner or later all these disabilities will disap¬ 
pear^ but in the meanwhile your—your nominal faith 
is in the way.” He knew Abert’s faith was but 
nominal. 

Albert dwelt on this remark but rather objectively. 
He only thought subjectively when he suffered deeply. 
Of late nothing stirred his depths. He followed the 
lectures of the Goettingen Solons, made merry with the 
students, was praised for his wit and his verses, and 
wrote but little; in fact, he had written almost nothing 
in the past nine months. 

And then a letter came from Uncle Leopold with 
a bill of exchange for his support. The letter ir¬ 
ritated him even though the money enclosed afforded 
him immediate relief. There was something between 
the lines of his uncle’s letter that intimated that a 
young man who passed his twenty-seventh year should 
be self-sustaining. This letter was the first real cause 
of irritation in months. He had heard that his uncle 
gave away tens of thousands of Thalers to charity and 
he begrudged his poor nephew a few marks! Yes, he 
must rid himself of his uncle’s bounty—and rid him¬ 
self at any cost. 

He grew morose and thoughtful and applied himself 
at once to his studies preparatory for his Doctor’s de¬ 
gree and to the writing of a series of travel sketches. 
He burned the candle at both ends. He would show 
his rich uncle that he could get along without him. 
He felt particularly hopeful because he had received 
a flattering letter from the Minister of Justice in 
Bavaria, who was also a poet. The fates had turned 
their bright faces upon him. Like Goethe he would 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


251 


obtain a government position, and thus made indepen¬ 
dent, would pursue the muses. His brain was feverish, 
his whole being on fire. He felt the approach of a 
severe headache—from studying and thinking and 
writing—but he did not care. His dreams were com¬ 
ing true, and the fire of the gods burned luminously. 
He felt inspired as he penned his sketches. Never be¬ 
fore had writing come to him so spontaneously, so 
free from effort. Again and again the hint dropped 
by the Dean recurred to him. It no longer offended 
him nor did the memory of it arouse antagonism with¬ 
in him. Why suffer because of mere formalism? 
What was it but formalism to him? His faith was 
only nominal, as the Dean had put it. In what re¬ 
spect was he a Jew? vaguely passed through his mind. 
He was more Greek than Jew. Certainly the.Jewish 
faith had no tangible meaning to him. Nothing but 
dogmatism! Why should this meaningless dogmatism 
stand between him and independence? 

One day he woke with a sudden determination. He 
must not hesitate any longer. He could hope for no 
assistance from his parents—his mother's letter a 
few days before had made that plain enough—and he 
could not bear the humiliation of further dependence 
upon his uncle. He was irritable that morning but 
that was because of his ceaseless work the past few 
months. He was nervous from too much thinking. 
No, he must not let this thing trouble him any longer. 
He laughed grimly to himself. He would change his 
religion—change non-belief in one for non-belief in 
another! He laughed but not without bitterness. The 
next moment the humor of it awakened curiosity. He 
was to be baptised! He had already talked to a clergy- 


252 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


man about his conversion, and noticed with amusement 
the glow on the good clergyman’s face—the glow on 
the face of an angler at sensing a nibble. Albert 
thought of this and laughed to himself. The clergyman 
suggested a new name for the newly born child—John 
Baptist Zorn! Albert stood before the open window 
in his room, looking dreamily in front of him- 

It was morning, the sun was shining gloriously upon 
the Wender Tower, serious-faced students on their 
way to lectures, a woman with an armful of provisions 
for breakfast, two flaxen-haired children playing horse, 
and he was going to have his name changed that day! 
There was a flutter in his heart and he laughed ner¬ 
vously. The comedy of life struck him forcibly—all 
life was but a jest of the gods, and he himself was 
one of the jesters! “J°lm Baptist Zorn!” he mur¬ 
mured to himself, and laughed hysterically. Tears ap¬ 
peared in his eyes. Oh, God, what a comedy life was! 

He started to carry out his resolution but suddenly 
paused. He blushed in the privacy of his room. No, 
he would not go through this farce. No, no, he could 
not be false to himself. He did not care for the opin¬ 
ion of others—why should he care for the opinion of 
the imbeciles to whom not religion but theology mat¬ 
tered, to whom religion was not the consciousness of 
the glory of the universe and its Creator, but mere 
heathen ceremonies ?—Indeed, it was not the opinion 
of the masses but he feared his inner self. No, he 
would not go through with this contemptible farce. 

He sat down on his bed, a throbbing at his temples. 
He was fatigued, a pain in his head, weary of life. 
He heaved a sigh. His eyes rested on his clothes. 
They were shabby. His uncle’s stipend had not been 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


253 


sufficient to afford him new clothes and allow him 
the elegance to which he had been accustomed. Be 
sides, he was so impractical and never did know how 
his money slipped from between his fingers. In a 
month the degree of Doctor of Laws was to be con¬ 
ferred upon him. To what purpose? 

To what purpose had he spent so much valuable 
time on the dry study of the law? It had a definite 
meaning for the other students, his friends at the 
university. Many of them would at once obtain gov* 
ernment appointments—there was one awaiting his 
friend Christian Lutz; another friend, a poet, had 
already procured a lucrative appointment—and others 
would follow their careers as lawyers—they all would 
use their vocations as a means of subsistence in this 
complex system of civilized life. But of what use would 
it be to him? A bitter laugh escaped him. In a 
month he would be addressed as Doctor Zorn! A title 
would be conferred on him—to what purpose? He 
was a Jew and under the Prussian law could not hold 
office, nor could he practice his profession. Ah, the 
irony of it! He was still in Egypt under the Pharaohs. 
Straw was not given him and the tale of bricks had 
to be delivered! 

He jumped out of his bed, stretched his arms, and 
gnashed his teeth. Jest for jest! Let the foolish 
angler have his catch! 



VAGABONDAGE. 


I. 


T HE greatest jest in life is that but few see the 
jest, and these few find it at their own ex¬ 
pense. 

Albert left the Lutheran clergyman stunned. The 
ceremony of the baptism, the seriousness of the God¬ 
fearing clergyman—these were all a dream but vague¬ 
ly remembered. Sincerity always found an echo in 
his heart, no matter how much he differed from the 
other's convictions, and the evident conscientiousness 
of the pious pastor who had performed the ceremony 
impressed him. It impressed him as if he had wit¬ 
nessed the conversion of a person other than himself. 
He viewed things from so many different angles that 
the same object often assumed different shapes, de¬ 
pending upon his mood at the time he viewed it. His 
mind, like concave and convex mirrors, at times, re¬ 
flected odd shapes. One moment he was calm and 
accepted the baptism as a definite change in his views 
of life, the next he cowered before his perfidy; and 
then, again, he laughed at the whole thing as if it 
were a Kinderspiel. He wished he could always re¬ 
gard it so. He felt more at peace with himself when 
the baptism appeared as a mere boyish prank. After 
all, the sublime and the ridiculous are but viewpoints. 
255 


256 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


However, he walked through the Wender Gate with 
a sneaking feeling in his heart. He returned to his 
lodgings shamefaced. The deed was done; the falter¬ 
ing of years had culminated into action. There was 
no going back. No matter what he might do or think 
nothing could undo this act. 

Was it really such an important step? He shud¬ 
dered. He tried to persuade himself that it was but a 
triviality, a matter of no moment, a mere empty cere¬ 
mony, but there was a flutter in his heart, a fine pers¬ 
piration on his pensive countenance. Why should he 
not have done it? He asked himself almost angrily, 
as if refuting an accusation. Was he not a German 
like other Germans? And he always did admire Lu¬ 
ther, It was really most fitting that a liberal minded 
man like himself should follow in the footsteps of the 
great Luther. He dwelt upon the noble virtues of 
the great reformer with a keen sense of satisfaction. 
He visualized the mental struggles of the champions 
of religious freedom. He felt that he was helping the 
Man of Worms nail the edict upon the church doors. 
And he certainly had no reason to regret the affiliation 
with the great Son of Galilee. He drew a breath of 
defiance. The lives of all great men were the stories 
of revolt. 

He was mentally fatigued and wished he could stop 
thinking. One of his nervous headaches was coming 
on. He must not torture his brain any longer. He 
must give himself to his studies. In about three weeks 
he must deliver a discourse on jurisprudence in order 
to obtain his coveted degree. Jurisprudence!—that ac¬ 
cursed study, that pseudo-scientiiic jugglery, that sys¬ 
tem of Roman casuistry!—why had he spent three of 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


257 


his fairest, most blooming years on subjects so repug¬ 
nant to him? One link of thought brought another, 
an endless chain. If he had not studied law he would 
not have bent his knee to the cross. He was a martyr 
yesterday, today a villainous coward! Gestern noch 
ein Held gewesen — 1st man hente schon ein Schurke! 

O, the misery of involuntary thoughts forcing an en¬ 
trance into one’s brain! He was tired of the whole 
business. He wanted to laugh, to jest, to invoke his 
sense of humor. His sense of humor had always been 
such an outlet for his feelings. He could always laugh 
away the most serious things in life. And this was 
not even serious—how the clergyman had rolled his 
eyes as he offered a prayer for the newborn soul of the 
convert—some day he would give a humorous descrip¬ 
tion of it in a poem—no, he would describe it in a 
novel. What was he thinking of? O, yes, the clergy¬ 
man’s solemnity. For a moment this struck him ludi¬ 
crously and he burst into laughter. But enough— 
enough! His head was splitting, a thousand needles 
were pricking back of his eyeballs, and he was weary, 
weary unto death. He must stop thinking. He must . . . 
The whole thing was not worth thinking about . . . 

In order to banish these torturing thoughts he began 
to think of his friend Gustav Moses in Berlin. The 
thought of Moses always had a soothing effect on him 
—that great soul! Moses was a sanctuary, a holy 
shrine, in whose presence all things and beings were 
pure. Though he was no expounder of new theories, 
no source of new philosophies, Moses always brought 
Spinoza to Albert’s mind. There was something of 
that great philosopher’s simplicity and goodness and 
purity in Moses. He must write to him and unbosom 


258 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


himself to his precious friend Moses would under¬ 
stand. Moses undestood so many things most people 
did not comprehend. Yet when he sat down with a 
quill in his hand sudden shame overwhelmed him. 
Why was he ashamed? Why should he not discuss 
this fully with Mbses? He had committed many follies 
and had never hesitated to speak of them to Moses. 
Besides, Moses, too, had just gone through this cere¬ 
mony. But to his friend it was an ideal—the con¬ 
version of all the Jews as a means of helping humanity 
-—but to himself—no, Albert could not deceive himself. 
He had not knelt to the cross because of an ideal. He 
had done it for the same reason that thousands of 
others had done it, for the same reason that Edward 
Gans had done it. Oh!—a groan escaped his breast. 
Only the day before he had written a scathing denun¬ 
ciation of those cowards who were deserting the sink¬ 
ing ship. And now he himself had done it! 

He began to write. He forced all other thoughts 
away. 

“Dear Gustav: 

“Will I ever grow up? I am still half a child, with 
all the reflections of maturity mirroring in my being 
—manhood, old age, godliness, caprice, profligacy, and 
what not. And just like a child I can't make up my 
mind whether to laugh or cry; I can cry and laugh 
at the same time. O, Gustav, I can't make up my 
mind whether I am a lion or a monkey in this great 
menagerie: I roar one moment and chatter foolishly 
and wag my tail the next. 

“I sat down to write you a long letter, covering 
many, many sheets full of profound thoughts and 
instructive wisdom, with many notations on the Book 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


259 


of Life, but I have just returned from a comic play 
which was so funny that I can not yet check my 
laughter and can not put myself into a serious frame 
of mind. There was a clown in the play—dressed 
like a clown, acting like a clown, and while he was go¬ 
ing through his manoeuvres burning tears were cours¬ 
ing down his painted cheeks. I was the clown in the 
play. So look for no logic in the acts of a clown. 

“I love you—Forget everything else. 

Albert/’ 


II. 


Ah! he would not acknowledge that he had made a 
mistake. He sought to justify his act. Not to others 
but to himself. Since his conversion, life had run 
smoother for him, he said to himself when he had ob¬ 
tained his degree. The Dean had spoken eloquently 
of his poetry as he presented the degree to him, and 
the other members of the faculty overlooked much of 
his ignorance of legal lore. No one knew better than 
he that the least of his knowledge was the knowledge 
of the law, and he felt a deep sense of gratitude for 
the faculty’s leniency. He felt confident that the worst 
was over. He would settle down as a government of¬ 
ficial, or a professor at some university, or at least 
as a lawyer, and live a well-regulated life, without the 
aid of his uncle. Yes, he would marry, too. He was 
about twenty-eight years old and ought not to fritter 
his life away. 

But he would not permit himself to think of his 
conversion. The exertions which preceded his private 


260 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


and public discourses anent the taking of his degree, 
his assiduous study of an uncongenial subject, his inner 
conflicts, fatigued him almost beyond endurance. He 
looked at his reflection in a mirror and felt even more 
exhausted. He could see fatigue in every line in his 
face. There were rings under his eyes; his cheeks 
had thinned; there was a roving restlessness in his eyes* 
In his present state he was not fit for literary work 
though he was bent on completing his book which he 
had commenced. 

There was no question of hard work at present. His 
nerves were shattered and his headaches were becoming 
more and more painful. So he wrote to Uncle Leopold, 
and the generous man, hopeful that his scapegrace 
nephew would at last settle down, dispatched him a 
liberal allowance by return mail for a vacation, not 
without a veiled admonition, however, not to squander 
the money “on other things.” 

He went at once to Nordernay for sea baths and 
followed the orders of his physician to think of nothing. 
He also indulged in some pastimes. Among the sea 
bathers there were a number of attractive young wo¬ 
men who had read a few of his songs, and their flat¬ 
tery was not displeasing to him. Though he knew his 
weakness, he easily yielded to flattery. 

Soon his headaches disappeared, healthier color came 
to his cheeks, frivolous thoughts were again sporting 
in his brain. Nor was he averse to the furtive glances 
of strangers as he walked restlessly up and down the 
beach, dreaming of strange legends that the tossing 
waves conjured up in his fancy. He felt the thrill of 
fame, the tumultuous waves making divine music in his 
ears. And sauntering along the shore in the twilight— 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


261 


the level dunes behind him, before him the seeming 
endless raging ocean—with all its mystery and tragic 
beauty, the huge dome of the heavens above him, his 
imagination took flight and soared to ethereal heights. 
Noble thoughts filled his brain, compassionate senti¬ 
ments crowded his breast, and he made resolutions! 
He would give his life for humanity and, in giving it, 
would melt the hearts of men with song. 

On the shore were sharpshooters aiming at sea¬ 
gulls in their flight. He did not enjoy this pastime. 
His ancestors were no hunters; rather they were of 
the hunted. His blood revolted at firing at the harm¬ 
less, innocent creatures. 

He recalled his boyhood days when he chanced upon a 
group of urchins who had brought down a nest from 
the top branches of a tree by well-aimed missiles. He 
emptied all his pocket money into the fists of the ur¬ 
chins to bribe them to liberate the featherless baby 
birds. He knew that the enemies of his ancestors 
had called them cowards because they could not bear 
the shedding of blood. His mind wandered. A shot was 
fired, a sea-gull dropped, a shout of admiration from 
the onlookers on the shore. Perhaps the fallen bird 
was a mother of poor little gulls still unfledged, lying 
in their sandy nests and waiting for their mother to 
bring them food. No, he would not give his life to 
this sort of achievement—killing was not in his blood! 
Rather would he devote his life to helping people live, 
live in greater freedom, physical and spiritual. 

His mind drifted, and his thoughts soon brought him 
to dwell on Christian Lutz’s life and his own. He 
had just run into Christian, who was here on his 
honeymoon. To a certain point their lives had run 


262 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


parallel. First at the Franciscan school, at the Ly¬ 
ceum, at Goettingen, at Berlin and—there it stopped. 
Christian was now married, with a government posi¬ 
tion affording him a livelihood, while he—Albert—was 
nowhere. Always promises—one friend had promised 
him to intercede with one of the influential men in 
Berlin to get him a position with the government— 
but there were nothing but promises in sight. He 
really did not know himself what would best suit him. 
He liked the idea of a professorship. He had many 
ideas about literature and philosophy and felt that he 
could teach something to the young at the university. 
But then a government position—a magistrate or judge 
would likewise please him. He loved the Germans 
even though he detested the Prussian government— 
he always felt that individually the Germans pos¬ 
sessed noble virtues, but collectively they were Prus¬ 
sian—and he felt that as a magistrate, or in any capacity 
as a public official, he could deal out justice tempered 
with kindness. But so far only promises . . . 


III. 


Still waiting for the promises to be fulfilled he 
returned to his parents for a while, made a short stop 
at Berlin, and went again to Hamburg in the early 
winter. Every time he returned to Hamburg it was 
with mingled feelings of regret and expectancy. This 
time he hoped that the Hamburgers would appreciate 
him. He was no longer Leopold Zorn’s nephew but 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


263 


Doctor Zorn and a poet of repute. Even his enemies 
admitted that he had genius for lyric verse. And he 
had just made arrangements to have his first book 
of travel published, and the publisher had said he 
might consider the publication of a collection of his 
scattered songs that had appeared in various periodi¬ 
cals. True, the publisher had promised no pay for 
the poems but Albert felt confident that it would bring 
him renown; and the Hamburgers would no longer re¬ 
gard him as a mere idler. This time he meant to be digni¬ 
fied. He would enter in no controversies with his 
critics. 

Before long, however, he realized that it was useless 
for him to settle down there. Uncle Leopold had made 
this clear to him at a stormy meeting between the 
two. But he had no other place to go to. 

He found himself a veritable Ishmael—his hand 
against every man and every man’s against him. His 
political views were now well defined and he dipped his 
pen in gall and continued writing. He would write a 
second volume of his travels and avenge himself on his 
enemies, little understanding that the fruit of ven¬ 
geance is never love. What corroded his heart most 
was the dawning knowledge that he had made a blunder 
that could never be rectified; that all the waters of the 
Jordan and of the North Sea could not wash away the 
few drops sprinkled upon him by the Lutheran Clergy¬ 
man. Yet he would not acknowledge that it was a 
blunder. Peevishly he said to himself that he was 
glad he was separated from the people who had never 
befriended him, who had never given him the least 
encouragement. 

More strife, more bitterness, more vexation of 


264 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


soul! Could he ever live in peace! The world had 
let Goethe sing in peace, and Goethe was as creedless 
as he. The world knew that Goethe was a pagan 
and he made no secret of it. Why was he, Albert 
Zorn, persecuted on every side? His book was well 
received—and was favorably compared with that of 
the great Goethe; his songs were being hummed from 
Leipzig to Hamburg; his wit was on every tongue, 
his enemies squirmed under his ironic fire; his heart 
was beating with love for every creature that lived; 
and yet why were the snakes hissing from every am¬ 
bush? The Jesuits had at last found in him a target 
for all their poisonous arrows—as if he had.been the 
first man in Germany to utter liberal views! Ah, 
the injustice of it all! They had chosen him for their 
target though he had always cherished a romantic love 
for the Church of Rome; they hunted him only be¬ 
cause he was more vulnerable, because he was born a Jew! 

His blood was on fire. And he had crawled on his 
knees to the Cross! Was he to cower and let them 
heap hot cinders upon his head because he was related 
to the Prophets? No, not he; the Jews had bowed 
their heads to their tormentors long enough. He was 
no long-bearded Isaac swaying over the Talmud, with 
an “oi” under his breath; no Rothschild in his counting 
house, with Kings as pawns! He was a poet, sweet 
melody in his heart; a critic of life and manners, a 
mighty instrument in his hand—they shall have thrust 
for thrust, stab for stab. He would seek for no mercy, 
he would not whine for justice, he would fight for his 
rights. 

But his boasting was only to conceal the rankling 
in his breast. His poetry or his prose had not been 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


265 


attacked, but his person. No, he was not ashamed 
of his lineage—had he been devoid of a sense of humor 
he would have even bragged of it—but after he had 
knelt at the font, after he had gone more than half 
way to eradicate all differences between himself and 
the Teutons, to be called a Jew! The iron entered his 
soul! He swept all admonition aside, he would not 
listen to the counsel of his friends. He was sharpening 
his arrows and dipping them in poison. His enemies 
had miscalculated. They thought he could only write 
love songs. He would make the dogs yelp before the 
expiring convulsion came! If Teutonia resorted to 
calling names his ancestors had once pitched their tents 
by the river Jordan, where calling names was an art 
Yet he hated the conflict. Why must they poison 
the honey in his heart? Why must they force the 
sting? He wanted to flee from Germany—flee from 
Germany and sing instead of “caw-caw” with the rest 
of the crows at home. 


IV. 

In moments of revolt Albert always thought of 
leaving his fatherland forever, but then his love for the 
land that gave him birth would return—his innate 
fondness of the people about him would possess him, 
the memories of his childhood on the banks of the 
Rhine would hold him with chains of steel. He saw 
every fault in his compatriots, but the faults seemed 
so glaring to him, and stirred him so deeply, because 
he loved the people. But what people ever learned 


266 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

that it is its critics, not its flatterers, who love it most 
sincerely ? 

He now found himself tom by a thousand conflicts. 
The censor was most annoying—one could hardly give 
expression to one's thoughts—and disobedience meant 
damp prisons; the officials were arrogant; and the 
land was full of Cant, Cult, and Culture. One could 
hardly breathe for want of free air in Germany. In 
order to divert the people from the r tyranny of the 
nobles and Prussian officialdom the government en¬ 
couraged orthodoxy on one hand and heterodoxy on 
the other. “Let the children play hard and forget other 
foolishness”, has always been the motto of tyrannical 
governments. Hegelism, Schlegelism, Schellingism, 
anti-Semitism—in short, anything to engage the pub¬ 
lic mind and coerce it into submission to the tyrant's 
will. 

Albert thirsted for freedom. True, his biting irony 
often escaped the scrutinising eye of the stupid censor 
—his thoughts emanated properly censored from his 
brain, he jested—but he craved a moment's respite. 
For a time he had again retired to Hamburg and buried 
himself in work. More songs, the publication of 
another book, planning new themes, pondering new 
subjects, ever yearning for love. 

One day he received a call to edit a political journal. 
He was thrilled. He wished to awaken Young 
Germany; Old Germany, he realized, was hope¬ 
less. He meant to speak freely, come what might. 
He wished to enroll himself among the warriors for 
the liberation of humanity. On his arrival in Munich 
he was made to feel that his renown was growing; 
that, in fact, he was already famous. His name was 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


267 


known, his songs were on everyone's lips, his epigrams 
were frequently quoted. He had learned with a keen 
sense of pleasure that while his first two books had 
made him many enemies they had also enlarged his 
circle of admirers. 

He felt that the time was ripe for the emancipation 
of the German mind. Every great mind miscalculates 
the minds of the people about him. He either under¬ 
estimates or overestimates them; or rather he under¬ 
estimates some of its qualities and overestimates others. 
Albert was no exception to this rule. While he was 
convinced that when “asses wish to abuse one another 
they call each other men” he attributed to the masses 
—stupider than asses—an intelligence and vision equal 
to his own. He jumped at the conclusion that the 
masses would get his viewpoint once it was presented 
to them. And because his clarity of vision enabled him 
to see the sham, superstition, and hypocrisy of the 
prevalent fetishes that passed for creeds, and of the 
tyrannies that passed for government, he imagined that 
others would see these great evils as soon as they were 
revealed to them. 

The reception accorded his books deceived him. 
He mistook the people’s laughter for applause. He 
failed to see that only a handful understood him and 
sympathized with him. Only the chosen few under¬ 
stood that when one dips his pen in gall his own heart 
very often brims over with love. The vast majority 
only laughed at his mordant irony, called him a scof¬ 
fer and an atheist, and hated him. When a friend 
had whispered in his ear “Look out for the Jesuits,” 
Albert only laughed. He thought it was for them to 
look out for him. He knew no fear. 


268 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 

V. 


The reception given him on his arrival at Munich 
assured him that his friend was wrong. He had no 
cause to fear the Jesuits. 

But the Jesuits in Munich were watching him. He 
was their sworn enemy, and the report that he would 
direct the policy of a new journal roused their ire. 
Munich was then the centre of Jesuitical activities. 
Ever since their return to Germany, after the fall of 
Napoleon, they had been hatching plots, creating dis¬ 
sension among the masses, shaping policies for their 
own selfish ends. They were seeking to rehabiliate 
themselves. They could not afford to pass in silence 
the caustic attacks of the jesting Albert Zorn. 

Before long, however, he grew tired of political 
strife. He was again soul-weary. He craved the soli¬ 
tude of the mountains, he longed for the golden mist 
of the southern heavens, he yearned for the warmth 
of the sunny climes. A thousand mysterious voices 
called to him from the land of orange blossoms and 
echoed in his heart melodiously. He longed for a 
peep at Italy. Ah, Italy! Italy! When the great 
God kneaded the earth into shape and set the human 
insects into motion—the whole swarm of human in¬ 
sects—he allotted the Caucasian steppes to the Tartars, 
Prussia to the Pedants, to the Hunters he gave the 
British Isle, France to the gay in spirit, but Italy,— 
Italy!—the great God breathed upon that colorful spot 
lovingly, kissed it, and was about to reserve it for his 
favorites among the angels when he changed His mind 
and assigned it as a haven for the soul-weary! Alas! 
with the confusion of the Tower of Babel many a 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


269 


Tartar wandered from his homeland and many a poet 
strayed from his designated abode. 

He wandered through Italy—through Livorno, Bagni 
di Lucca, Florence, Bologna, Venice—and he wandered 
among the ruins of antiquity, “a ruin among ruins.” 
He jested and scoffed, worshipped and blasphemed, 
honey in his heart. Poetic melodies, like birds of pas¬ 
sage driven South, returned to him; his heart once 
more glowed and beat tumultuously; the nightingale 
again sang for him. The broken columns, the ruined 
towers, the shattered classic images spoke to him in a 
language he understood. 

He wanted to forget the past, to obliterate the in¬ 
sults heaped upon him by his enemies. Italian skies in¬ 
spire sweet dreams and make one forget troubles. The 
promise of a chair at the University whispered hope. 
Yes, he would give the rest of his life to champion 
the rights of the people. 

While amusing himself at the Baths of Lucca he 
was laying plans for the future. He had received a 
hopeful letter about the professorship. His brain was 
brimming over with enthusiasm and joy. He would 
make all his friends proud of him and he would not 
only repay them with gratitude but also with service. 
And how gloriously his third book was coming along! 
The volume was so spontaneous; it was writing itself. 
Humor and song were flowing from his pen. Not a 
word of bitterness in this book, he decided. No stings, 
nothing but the sweetest of honey. He intended to 
have the third volume mirror the heavenly witchery 
of Italy and the flowing love of his soul; no, not a 
word of bitterness. At the worst, only a passage of 


270 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


fun-making at superstition but nothing—not a line— 
to offend anyone’s sensibilities. 

Ah, there was again spring in his heart! Sentiments 
of love and freedom, like fresh roses, burst forth 
anew. Above him the rays of the brilliant sun pierced 
the mist hanging over the mountains and “sucked at 
the earth’s breast like a hungry suckling child.” He 
was again in the spring of life, everything thawing, 
melting, sweet murmurs everywhere. He was in love 
with life and every breathing creature. 

And the arts of man were about him in abundance; 
the divine ecstasy of generations long dead impressed 
on palace and ruin; ecstasy filled his being to over¬ 
flowing. No, not a tinge of bitterness in his heart, no 
acrid irony in his brain, nothing but goodwill and hap¬ 
piness and the effervescence of life. 


VI. 

But one day in November a gust of wind swept over 
him; a cold, damp, bleak wind that blighted the bloom- 
ing flowers in his heart and covered the sun rays with 
a black cloud and filled his heart with sadness. No 
more hope for a chair at a university, no prospect of a 
life of contemplation and peace and song. The Jesuits 
had stronger influence than his friends. And as if 
designing to annihilate him completely the Jesuits had 
attacked him with all their forces. 

His third volume was nearly completed when the 
latest affront reached him. He had quite forgotten 
his Hebraic strain. In the land of Virgil, with the 
echo of Homer from the neighboring shores, he thought 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


271 


himself more Greek than Hebrew, but suddenly the 
evaporated fumes of his smouldering agony were driven 
back into his heart. He was consumed by a thirst for 
vengeance. Since his enemies would not let him forget 
his Hebraism he would be like the God of the ancient 
Hebrews. No whining, cowering for him! Even as 
the Macabees of old, his progenitors, he would meet 
the enemy with piercing arrows and devastating rocks. 
He was no preacher of love for those that hated him; 
hate for hate! There was scornful laughter in his 
heart. His enemies—the Preachers of Love—had 
hated even those who loved them! 

He was then in Florence, that dreary November day, 
the skies a-drizzling, thick mist screening the banks 
of the Arno, a severe cold in his head. He had spen*t 
six weeks, rambling, dreaming, drinking from the 
fountain of beauty. With all the quaint narrow streets, 
the art treasures around him, the buildings mellowed 
with age, his imagination astir with a thousand mem¬ 
ories of antiquity, a thousand raptures to enthrall his 
soul, his romantic love for Catholic mysticism re¬ 
turned, the slumbering sensuous love he felt in his 
childhood. Even while he smiled at the faded Madonnas 
and was provoked to laughter by the hideous saints of 
early Tuscan conception his heart glowed with reverence 
and deep emotion. But that day only rancor filled his 
heart. 

He left his lodgings and wandered along the bank 
of the Arno, unmindful of the cold and the pain in his 
head. The water of the flowing river did not reflect 
the azure of the Italian skies. The drizzling rain had 
stirred the placid surface and, like his heart, was 
turgid and muddy. Nothing was beautiful around him 


272 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


now. All was grim. For not only woman’s beauty but 
all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He wished 
to think of other things—he said to himself he would 
dismiss the “filth and stupidity” of the “congregation” 
at Munich—but his brain would admit no other thought. 
But for his birthright—or was it his birth-curse?—he 
would have been now on his way to assume the duties 
of a professor of literature and devote the rest of his 
life to his beloved fatherland. He shuddered, then a 
cynical smile appeared on his tightly closed mouth. He 
remembered that morning at the Franciscan school, 
when he revealed to Christian Lutz the fact that his 
father’s father had been a little Jew with long whiskers. 
Every time the world recalled that revelation there 
was a mob to jeer at him and a Father Scher to 
shower blows upon him! 

He continued along the bank, one moment serious, 
his eyes closed, the next moment a strange smile on his 
lips. 

When he reached the Ponte Grazie and made his 
way across the little stone bridge toward the Uffizi, 
his heart felt lightened. He saw the sublime jest of 
life; everybody laughing at everybody else. The world 
was a great lazaretto where every suffering inmate was 
laughing at the infirmities of the other. Was he not 
himself a suffering patient mocking the other patients? 
The irony of it all amused him and made him forget 
the drizzling rain and the pain in his head. 

Presently a priest passed him, a sorry spectacle of 
a man, pale, emaciated, bent, his bony hands quivering, 
his lips muttering something. The poor fellow had 
spent so much time in praying that his lips moved even 
when not at prayer. What a face! All the pains and 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


273 


sorrows that human flesh was heir to were mirrored in 
it. Albert’s heart was wrung with pity; there was no 
mockery in his heart. No, he would not even reply 
to the attacks of his enemies. Love those that hate 
you! He now understood that sublime utterance. The 
great Jew of Galilee must have understood the jest 
of life, and when one understands one can only pity, 
not mock. 

Then he passed an old church. A woman, her head 
and shoulders covered with a black cashmere shawl, 
pulled open the heavy church door and entered. He 
followed her in, The woman did not turn right or 
left but walked up to the altar, knelt on the stone steps 
and began to pray. He stood in the rear, his eyes 
gazing blankly in front of him. The church was de¬ 
serted, gloomy, a strange sombre light sifting in through 
the many colored windowpanes, leaving the long arch¬ 
ways in twilight dimness; a swinging oil lamp in front 
of the beautiful image of the Madonna accentuated the 
nocturnal shadows beyond the reach of this glimmer¬ 
ing light. It was noiseless yet there sounded in his 
ears dying echoes. Now and then a soft murmur came 
from somewhere as if the great organ, weary of pro¬ 
longed silence, emitted a soft sigh. A thousand in¬ 
visible phantoms seemed to people this empty, age¬ 
smelling church. The kneeling, praying woman, the 
stone images of saints, the indefinable forms flitting 
here and there back of the pillars, the murmuring from 
the side chapel, the emaciated priests outside, the 
* Jesuits at Munich, all the religious controversies—Oh, 
God, what a travesty, what a jest! He wondered which 
was the greater jest, the festive gods of Olympus, 
who went about' their business merrily and drank 


274 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


toasts from golden goblets and made love to the god¬ 
desses and slew their rivals, or the solemn, abstemious 
gods surrounded by shaven monks who fretfully ca¬ 
joled and fawned upon their Jupiter, sadly rolling their 
eyes, praying for favors. 

He suddenly rushed out of the church and pro¬ 
ceeded through a narrow alley which afforded a short 
cut to the Uffizi. At present everything appeared far¬ 
cical to him; nothing was serious. Politics, religion, 
love, spaghetti, literature, painting, the Seven Sins— 
or was it the Seven Wonders?—amusing jests all! As 
he entered the Palazzo degli Uffizi, walking past marble 
statues, Florentine tapestries, Satyrs, Wrestlers, Fauns, 
Madonnas, Venuses, Popes, Cupids, the Flight from 
Egypt and the Flight into Egypt, the Weltschmerz — 
the soul-weariness—of it all seized him and almost 
choked him with Satanic laughter. At a glance he be¬ 
held the Sublime Jesters of all ages!—Michael Angelo, 
Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, 
da Vinci—the sublimest jester of all—each one busy 
with the jest of life in his own way. 

He traversed vestibules and corridors, lofty vaulted 
chambers and frescoed palaces, and suddenly halted 
before a relief of the Sacrifice of Iphigeneia and close 
beyond it the Martyrdom of St. Justina by Paul Ve¬ 
ronese. Were these jests, too? 

He passed his hand over his eyes, then rubbed his 
forehead. Was he insane or had the rest of the world 
lost their wits? again passed through his mind. If he 
was sane the rest of the world could not be sane. The 
rest of the world took all this seriously, almost tragic¬ 
ally—the Satyrs and the Fauns and the Madonnas 
and the Martyrs—and did not see the jest of it all. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


275 


His eyes dimmed by fugitive thoughts, he walked 
without seeing anything around him. He was feeling 
for the pillars, a prayer in his heart—O Lord God, I 
pray Thee, strengthen me, O God, that I may be 
avenged of the Philistines. The jeering laughter of 
the Philistines was in his ears. Dagon, their god, 
towered over him; he felt the fetters of brass against 
his flesh. 

He returned to his lodging and plunged into work. 
He meant to jest but his jesting now was bitter. He 
was avenging himself on the Philistines. And no one 
ever avenged himself on the Philistines without falling 
with them. 

VII. 

There is always an element of discontent in the de¬ 
sire to travel. Contented people, like cattle in verdant 
pastures, remain on the hillside, munching their food 
in peace and tranquility. 

He could not remain much longer in Florence. He 
wanted to travel, to move about. He went to Bo¬ 
logna, to Ferrara, to Padua, to Venice. But one can¬ 
not escape his own shadow. He carried his griefs 
with him. He was short of money but that mattered 
little to him. The memory of his gayety at the Baths 
of Lucca, at Livorno, at Florence, was forgotten. 

Innately sensual he sought to drive away his gloom 
(as he had often done) by conjuring scenes of Flor¬ 
entine Nights and living over again those blissful mo¬ 
ments; Signora Francesca, with those dark brown eyes, 
long, black lashes, rich black hair, and captivating body; 
Signora Letitia—that temptress, with a throbbing 





276 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


bosom, who carried on flirtations with half a dozen 
men at the same time; Matilda—that virtuous flirt, 
who tried to conceal her sensuousness by constantly 
talking about, and condemning, the sensuality of others; 
that pink-cheeked English girl, whose face looked as 
if it were bedewed with spray from the sea—No, 
these recollections brought no joy to his heart, not 
even a momentary consolation, as they had done on 
other occasions. He was seized with a morbid long¬ 
ing to wander, to wander everlastingly, to lun away 
from himself. 

While at Venice he received a letter from h's 
brother that his father was very ill. He could read 
between the lines that it was a call to his father’s 
death-bed. Somehow, this very sad news brought him 
relief. It at once removed his restlessness. He was 
calm. He had suddenly become philosophical, stoical. 
It was as if one of his veins had been opened to re¬ 
lieve an intense pain. He left Italy and rushed back 
to his native land where his father was dying. 

The following three months he frittered away be¬ 
tween Hamburg and Berlin. His widowed mother had 
moved to Hamburg, and she begged him to stay there 
but he detested the city. It held for him too many 
bitter memories. 

He finally decided to isolate himself. His action 
was that of the storm-tossed woman of passion who 
finds refuge in a nunnery. 

He went to Potsdam, where he could see only “ Him - 
ntel und Soldaien”. Potsdam in those days was not 
the suburb of Berlin that it is today. There was 
neither Subway nor Elevated nor speedy surface trains 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


277 


to carry one from Unter den Linden to Sans Souci in 
half an hour. Then it was a considerable distance 
from the Prussian capital. 

In Potsdam he found himself truly isolated, far 
from friends and diversions. And he had so many 
plans for work; the completion of another book; a 
humorous book, poems, essays, a political treatise. 
Then, again, here he was safe from his ever threaten¬ 
ing peril—of falling in love. He had barely escaped 
a strong attachment for the wife of a friend, but her 
intellect had saved him. 

He remained at Potsdam nearly six months, work¬ 
ing feverishly on new poems. 

After a time he found his self-imposed imprison¬ 
ment irksome. The atmosphere in Potsdam was not to 
his liking either. The presence of soldiers —die Men - 
schenfresser —everywhere, the artificiality of the gar¬ 
dens of San Souci, where the firs were “masked as 
orange trees” and “so unnatural that they were almost 
human”—everything was unbearable here. 


VIII. 

He longed for rest. He wished to escape from the 
tumults of life, from the tumults of his passions. He 
was a poet and wished to withdraw to bucolic quietude, 
indulge in pleasant reveries, and pipe sweet melodies. 

With the Bible and Homer as his only companions 
he left his family and friends and went to the sea¬ 
shore. He would forget that he had been the editor 
of a political journal; he would forget that he had 
fought the Knights of Darkness; he would forget all 


278 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the skirmishes in which he had engaged since his early 
youth. He would lie on the shore, listen to the 
sporting waves, and watch the clouds overhead. 

He wandered along the beach in the twilight, solemn 
stillness all around him, the vault of heaven “like a 
Gothic church”, the stars above burning and flickering 
like countless lamps, the sweep of the waves “like the 
reverberations of a great organ”. At last he thought 
he had found himself. Again he wanted to emulate 
Goethe. He wanted no political strife, no controversial 
essays, no more ironic flings. Action was not his 
sphere, politics not his handiwork. He was no Ludwig 
Borne. He was neither agitator nor reformer. He 
was a literary artist and must let politics and phil¬ 
osophy alone. He must devote the rest of his life to 
the observation of nature and to the interpretation of 
it—that was the thirst of his soul. 

Yes, the quiet and peace of the seashore suited 
him. No one there to engage him in polemics, no 
one to argue with. He had made the acquaintance 
of a sea captain and at times listened to tales of the 
sea, the sea that he loved “as much as his soul”. 
There were also two young women, whose acquaintance 
he had made, but neither of them was young or pretty 
enough to arouse his interest. He was jestingly friv¬ 
olous with them and they, in turn, lionized him and 
made him conscious of his fame. Indeed, he had 
found himself at last. He was supremely happy. 
After a few more weeks of rest and recuperation he 
would settle down to his life-work. 

One day he was seated in his room reading and 
dreaming. The house where he lodged was situated 
on an elevation away from the shore, back of an old 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


279 


church, and commanded a beautiful view of the ocean 
in the distance; “Zur schonen Aussickt,” the owner had 
named his cottage. 

A knock on his door and his landlord, a fisherman, 
handed him a packet of newspapers and a letter from 
Berlin. The letter contained nothing of importance 
beyond literary gossip. He then tore the wrappers 
from the newspapers and began scanning the narrow 
columns in a careless, casual manner when he suddenly 
jumped from his seat, drew his breath, and stared at 
the sheet before him as if convulsed. At first pallor 
appeared in his cheeks, then they turned red, and his 
whole body quivered. 

"A revolution!—a revolution!—a revolution, Herr 
Nikkels!” 

Herr Nikkels, the fisherman, stared at the speaker 
with unconcealed bewilderment. He had thought his 
lodger a little queer—always walking up and down the 
seashore when not bathing, or pacing up and down the 
floor of his room—but he had never seen him so 
agitated. 

Albert raced up and down the room, the newspaper 
ciutched in his hand, a strange glow on his face. 

“O, it’s wonderful! glorious!—at last it has come!” 
he cried. 

“What has happened?” the fisherman, still staring, 
asked. 

“Ah, my dear Nikkels, the greatest thing in the 
world has happened! They are marching in Paris, 
with the tri-colored flag, singing the Marseillaise. Oh, 
isn’t it wonderful!” Then stretching his arms up¬ 
ward, “Oh, for a glimpse of Paris today.” 

The fisherman drew at his pipe, shrugged his shoul- 


280 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


ders, and walked out. “This fellow Zorn is quite 
crazy/' he confided to his wife a few moments later. 

Zorn was quite crazy that day. He did not take 
his prescribed sea-bath, could not read, could not write, 
dodged every acquaintance on the beach, rushed up 
and down the shore as if possessed. 

Lafayette, the tri-colored flag, the Marseillaise! He 
could think of nothing else. He was intoxicated, deli¬ 
rious. All his resolutions had gone to the winds—all 
his resolutions for rest and quiet and peace; his hun¬ 
ger for calm reveries and piping melodies was gone. He 
was aching for strife, for the very vortex of strife. 
Ah, if he could whip his countrymen into action and 
arouse them from their sluggish contentment, perhaps 
they, too, would hoist the tri-colored flag and sing the 
Marseillaise! 

Aux armes, citoyens] 

No piping melodies for him, no fantasies, no love 
ditties! 

Aux armes , citoyens! Aux armes! 

He would take the lyre into his hands and sing a 
battle song. He was no Wolfgang von Goethe, playing 
with metrical verses while the enemy's cannons were 
roaring at the city gates! How differently the ocean 
waves were galloping to the shore today! They were 
chanting the Marseillaise, they were calling tumultu¬ 
ously : 

(t Aux armes, citoyens , aux armesV* 

The whole ocean was aflame with the fire that 
was burning in his heart; the mermaids were dancing 
with joy, giving a the dansant in honor of the great 
event. No, no, no rest for him! He was a child of 
the revolution, rebellion against all tyranny in his 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


281 


blood. He was what he was and could be no other. 
He would wreathe his head with flowers for the death- 
struggle to come. Ah, he would smite the pious hypo¬ 
crites who had crept into the holy of holies to defile 
it! He would hurl javelins at the tyrants, with their 
armies of Menschenfresser, who were holding man¬ 
kind in fetters of steel! With words like flaming stars 
he would set fire to the palaces of the oppressors and 
illumine the dingy huts of the enslaved. 

Aux armes, citayens, aux artnes! 

He was “all joy and song, all sword and flame.” 

“And God said, let there be light!” The torch of the 
Revolution of July had spread light to all the dark 
places. To Poland, to Spain, to Britain, to Prussia. 
All eyes were turned to Paris. From there came the 
light! 

He left the seashore. He could no longer bear 
the rest and quiet of the place. He went to Hamburg 
and restlessly watched developments. He could think of 
nothing but the revolution. He also watched, with a 
sinking heart, the renewed activities of the authorities. 
The censor had become even more ruthless. More than 
half he had written was suppressed. His publishers, 
the most daring in Germany, had dropped a hint of 
caution to him. They had learned that the Prussian 
government had issued a warrant for his arrest. The 
air of Hamburg was stifling. He wanted to breathe 
free air. Yes, he must fight, and, if necessary, perish 
in the war of human liberation. The dawn of a new 
religion—the religion of freedom—was rising and he 
must consecrate himself as one of its priests. 

When he told Uncle Leopold of his intention to go 
to Paris the elderly gentleman heaved a sigh of re- 


282 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


lief. Indeed, he would be happy to defray all ex¬ 
penses for Albert’s stay in Paris as long as he pleased. 
To be a namesake of Albert Zorn was no great com¬ 
fort in these stirring days. Leopold Zorn was no 
revolutionary. He was a law-abiding citizen, and as 
a great banker he knew that even a tyrannical govern¬ 
ment was better than a government convulsed. 

Albert’s mother could not understand his desire to 
go to Paris. She had never been outside of Germany, 
and Paris seemed very distant. What would he do in 
Paris ? Her fond hopes had been rudely shattered. 
Her poor husband had died with ambitions unattained 
and now her beloved son, the choice of her flock, was 
merely drifting, at an age when most men were com¬ 
fortably established. Of course, she had heard of the 
abdication of Charles X and of the July Revolution in 
France, but what had these to do with her son? She 
was growing old, she was complaining, and craved for 
quiet and peace. Why go to Paris where there was 
so much excitement and turmoil? 

“How soon will you be back?” she asked of him 
eagerly. 

He was taking leave of her, his arms enfolding her, 
his sister, with a babe in her arms, standing close by. 

“I can’t tell, mother dearest;” looking away wistfully. 

“Do take good care of yourself and don’t get mixed 
up with bad company,” she spoke beseechingly. “Uncle 
Leopold said-” 

Yes, I know, what Uncle Leopold always says,” he 
struck in impatiently, with a cynical smile in the deep 
corners of his mouth. “Hold on to the Thalers and 
the rest will take care of itself.” 

There was a melancholy smile on the mother’s benign 



THE SUBLIME JESTER 


283 


face. Everything Albert said sounded clever to her 
ears but she did not like to hear him jest about 
Uncle Leopold. Leopold was very good to her indeed, 
as he had always been in the past. 

“What will you do in Paris ?” 

“March and sing the Marseillaise,” he said, laugh¬ 
ing. 

“Will you ever be serious ?” 

“IPs because I am too serious that I jest, my little 
mother. ,, He kissed her on both cheeks. 

The mother sighed; a tear was slowly rolling down 
her face. 

Albert flung his arms around his mother, embraced 
his sister, kissed her little son, and rushed out of the 
house. His tears and emotions were choking him. 

Outside the sun was shining brightly, light clouds 
in the sky. It was the first of May, fresh, earth- 
scented odors in the air. A stolid sluggish fellow, 
with a large, heavy basket on his head, walked past 
Albert as he came out of his mother’s house. Albert 
looked after the fellow and sighed. Will Michel 
ever quicken his step? Ah, the poor Michel! Albert’s 
heart was wrung with pain. Presently an officer 
loomed up in the distance. Albert jumped into the 
vehicle that was waiting for him at the curb. 

“Aux armes, citoyens , aux armesY’ he murmured 
to himself as the vehicle rattled away. 






PART THREE 


A CYNIC IN THE MAKING 


) 




A HAPPY EXILE. 


I. 

A heavy load was lifted, the air seemed lighter, one 
could breathe freely. The uprising in Paris was 
but short-lived, the bloody skirmish had lasted 
two days and Louis Phillipe was once more safe on 
his throne, reinforced by a new cabinet. The citizen- 
king —le roi citoyen —once more made the people be¬ 
lieve that he was the same Louis Phillipe who had 
been in the habit of carrying an umbrella like any 
plain citizen, with a modest round felt hat on his un¬ 
crowned head no different from one worn by the mas¬ 
ses. Peace was again restored. The red flag was 
again replaced by the one of three colors; the shouts 
of “Long live the Republic” and “Down with Louis 
Phillipe” had once more been hushed; the vicinity of 
the Cloister St. Merry, where the zealous One Hun¬ 
dred Republicans had fought and fallen, was quiet 
and deserted. The French capital always lived from 
day to day and forgot the past. Barricades and 
booming cannon one day, gay laughter and resplendent 
parades the next. 

The genial sun of early summer was in the sky 
and all Paris seemed to have turned out into the 
streets, into the public gardens, into the parks; God, 
287 


288 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


feeling bored in his celestial abode, “opened the win¬ 
dow of heaven and looked down on the Boulevards/' 
And the Boulevards were amusing enough. The death¬ 
ly clash of a few days ago was forgotten. There was 
merriment in every face; smiling eyes beamed above 
the marble-topped tables along the sidewalks in front 
of the busy cafes; from side streets came the tremulous 
gurgling of hurdy-gurdies, the emotional tones of chant¬ 
ing beggars, singing the latest, La Parisienne. Sud¬ 
denly a frantic, joyous shout rent the air; handker¬ 
chiefs waved, canes were brandished—the variegated 
colors of a crowd in motion. An old man in a phaeton 
passed. His white hair was covered with a brown 
wig; his kindly eyes sparkled with youth in spite of his 
seventy-four years; he raised his hat and bowed with 
military dignity and yet with the humility of the very 
great. 

“Vive le general LaFayette!” 

The appearance of the hero of two hemispheres on 
the Boulevards always had a soothing effect upon 
the masses. They felt that with this champion of lib¬ 
erty still among them the rights of the people were 
preserved. 

Amidst the jovial pedestrians that thronged the 
Grand Boulevards Albert Zorn strolled pensively, his 
hands in his pockets, his dreamy, though keen, eyes, 
narrowed inquisitively, his head thrown back, a smile 
of triumph and joy on his smooth-shaven oval face. 
He was well dressed, in light colored coat and trousers 
and a waistcoat of many bright hues, yet his clothes 
hung on him as if he gave no care to his outward 
appearance. Though well-built, with a body of medium 
height and a head proudly set upon a solidly formed 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


289 


neck, he gave one the impression of shortness. It was 
his legs rather than his body that were short. He 
walked with the aimlessness of a student, of a dreamer 
who always seeks life in the street rather than in the 
drawingroom. There was a touch of melancholy in his 
eyes even when he smiled and a peculiar light shone 
from between his narrowed eyelids—a shaft of sun¬ 
light emerging from a crevice. At times he whistled 
as he walked and mumbled rhythmic words to himself. 
There was the gait of conscious freedom in his step, 
the freedom regained by a convict after long imprison¬ 
ment. The gayety of the people about him filled 
him with secret joy, the saluting ejaculations were 
music in his ears. He was seeing history in the 
making and was alive to the events of the day. 

He rambled wistfully, as if carried along by the 
human tide, and not infrequently was jostled by the 
people about him. He was tempted to get into people’s 
way and hear the exclamations of apology and see the 
sunny smiles on their faces. He loved the gleam of 
those velvety French eyes and the melody of their 
light-hearted laughter. Though of a bluntly frank 
nature himself he found the polite urbanity of the 
Parisians as refreshing as the wafting fragrance from 
a greenhouse. He was keenly conscious of the foreign 
atmosphere and fascinated by the people’s manners. 
Some one had just touched his arm and apologized 
courteously, and he lapsed into a revery of comparison 
between the people in his native land and the people 
here. In his native land people dug each other in the 
ribs without a suggestion of craving one’s pardon. 
Many cycles of thought began to revolve in his brain. 
One led to another. Then came straggling, disjointed 


290 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


fragments of thought — like loose threads — that became 
snarled and were formed into a knotted coil. . . . 


II. 

Since the Revolution in Paris the whole tenor in 
Albert's life had changed. He had hung up his lyre 
and gripped the sword. The Revolution had made 
him forget his resolution to devote the rest of his 
life to his art. He had thrown himself into the 
maelstrom of political activities and fought merciless¬ 
ly. He had decided upon a mission in life. To write 
sweet songs was not enough, he had determined. He 
must do his share in the struggle for the liberation 
of man, mental as well as physical liberation. He 
was fighting the Junkers and the priests—the Adel und 
Pfaffenherrschaft —with telling effect. The articles 
he had written since he fled from Germany stirred the 
people at home even more than while he was amongst 
them. Yes, he must fight for the liberation of man! 

Instead of the Bible and Homer he was hugging 
to his breast Jean Jacques Rousseau’s work. He real¬ 
ized that France was at present the cradle of Liberty 
as Judea of old was the cradle of Faith. 

How could he really sing with the rattling of pris¬ 
oners’ chains in his ears? The course of one’s life 
is fixed at one’s very birth, and strive as one might 
the given course must be followed. Albert felt as if 
an invisible hand was directing his course, a forceful, 
dominating hand. Free will ? There was no free will 
He often thought of the allegory of Jonah fleeing to 
Tarsish. Poor Jonah believed in free will but the 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


291 


whale taught him a different lesson. “Arise, go unto 
Ninevah, that great city, and preach unto it the preach¬ 
ing that I bid thee.” Everyone must preach the 
preaching that is bidden him. 

However, at times he turned to the Prophets and 
drank from the ever fresh waters of their deep wells. 
And the Jesuits in Munich and the Junkers in Berlin 
were pointing to his blasphemy! So did the ancient 
priests and the nobles of old Judea call their prophets 
scoffers and blasphemers. It is ever thus, Albert 
Zorn mused with sublime contempt in his heart, one 
must be crucified in order to save the world. 

Would he ever be understood? He did not preach 
any definite doctrine to attract adherents. He was no 
Borne, with set rules and formulas for the emancipa¬ 
tion of mankind; no self-centered Goethe to inspire 
romantic cults. He was carrying on guerilla warfare, 
shooting at whosoever was hostile to human progress. 
He understood the course of human progress better 
than that fanatical Borne who dreamt of bringing 
about a millennium with one leap. Human progress 
is gained by taking a leap forward, then half a step 
backward, then forward again, until the goal is reached. 
Reaction is as much a part of human progress as revo¬ 
lution. Revolution is only a link in the chain of evolu¬ 
tion. He dreaded Communism, he despised Absolu¬ 
tism, he detested the mediocrity of Republicanism, even 
more than Philistinism. He was concerned with the 
freedom of the spirit even more than with the freedom 
of the body. Must he go on being misunderstood? He 
did not care for the opinion of his enemies—it did not 
matter to him that they charged him with want of char¬ 
acter—but it grieved him to learn that even his friends 


292 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


and admirers failed to understand him. Only a few 
days before he had bared his heart in a letter to a 
friend. Would any one ever understand his inner 
struggles and strife? “We do not expect our friends 
to agree with us but we expect them to understand the 
motives of our actions/’ he pleaded. 

He could not deny that he had sipped from the 
sweetness of life since his arrival in Paris. A new 
world was opened to him. At last he had found him¬ 
self free, breathing freely, moving about without re¬ 
straint, without the conscious restraint that Prussian 
tyranny had imposed upon him. Not only the tangible 
shackles but even the invisible fetters—those that make 
one’s inner consciousness cower—had fallen away. 

From the first day he stepped upon French soil no 
one reminded him, by look or gesture or remotest 
insinuations, of the virtues, or vices, of his forefathers. 
Having brought with him only a few letters of intro¬ 
duction, and as yet wholly unknown to the reading 
public in France, his poems and ready wit had quickly 
won him a large circle of friends and admirers. He 
had already met Victor Hugo, George Sand, Adolph 
Thiers, General LaFayette, and formed friendships 
with Balzac and Gautier and Alexandre Dumas; and, 
as in Berlin, he had found here an admirer who wished 
to be his patroness. She was a princess, who, while 
she did not possess the brilliancy and depth of Frau 
Vamhagen, was a woman of culture and had an in¬ 
nate appreciation of poetry. At her soirees one met 
not only the literary and artistic celebrities of the day 
but also renowned statesmen and diplomats. 

He was as famous here as in his native land. The 
Revue des Deux Mondes was running a translation of 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


293 


his works, laudatory articles were written about him, 
his correspondence from Paris had made a stir in 
Germany and Austria, and his publishers were issuing 
new editions of his books. Though he was spending 
freely, sufficient money was coming in to meet his 
obligations. Indeed, fortune smiled upon him. 

“Vive le gankral Lafayette!” the throngs around 
him roared again. 

He had reached the Madaleine, which was then still 
under construction, and crossing the street he walked 
back along the Grands Boulevards. Only the day be¬ 
fore he had talked with Balzac about the charm of 
wandering through the crowded streets of Paris, watch¬ 
ing the people and listening to their talk. Albert found 
that he could think best as he wandered along the 
crowded sidewalks. 

He soon found himself again thinking of his Father- 
land. He was always thinking of his Fatherland. The 
soil of Germany was sacred to him, her language was 
music to his ears. He loved Paris, loved the French, 
but his heart beat for the land of the Rhine. He re¬ 
called a recent attack on him in a German newspaper. 
He was attacked on all sides. The radicals called him 
a traitor, the Junkers called him a revolutionist. But 
he did not mind. He was a little David with more 
than one smooth stone in his pouch. He would yet 
slay the blustering Goliath. He would fight for 
Young Germany in his own way! 

However, the knowledge that he was being attacked 
by the radicals and the Junkers stirred his blood. At 
last the poor Michel had stopped snoring. He was 
stretching his clumsy arms. No more sweet lullabies 
for the drowsy Michel, no more love songs, no dream 


294 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 

ballads, no subtle epigrams. He must speak to him 
more directly, in language he could not misunderstand. 
He had scarcely more than unsheathed his sword. 
They shall see! 


MARGUERITE. 


I. 

A LBERT found time passing pleasantly and 
swiftly. Two more years had passed and he 
was still living the life of a literary journalist 
—visiting cafes, art galleries, places of amusement; 
dining at the homes of the elite, visiting notables, fre¬ 
quenting fashionable circles. He was trying to per¬ 
suade himself that his was a happy existence—fame in 
Germany and even greater renown in Paris, his health 
fairly good save for an occasional headache, and his 
earnings considerable—but he could not shut his ears 
to the small voice calling from the very depth of his 
heart. It was a rebuking, reproachful voice, which he 
could silence neither with a witty epigram nor with 
convincing preachment. It was the voice of mock¬ 
ing Satan, with whom the more one expostulates the 
more it mocks. He was already in his thirty-sixth 
year and none of his great literary plans had come to 
fruition. He had been bartering his talents for ducats. 
Had his fire gone out? He trembled. He had hardly 
written a poem worthy of the name in the past two 
years. True, he had not been idle and had fought for 
the liberation of his compatriots, and studied and 
worked very industriously on critcism of literature, 
religion, philosophy; but that, he said to himself, was 
not his life work. Yes, even love was dead in his 
heart. Was he growing old? Fear seized him. Goethe 
at thirty-six had only begun to love, and only begun 
295 


296 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


to live. His heart was beating with the rapidity of 
fear. When one ceases to feel the lure of love one 
is nearing his grave, he mused. And one morning 
he awakened to find two fingers of his left hand be¬ 
numbed. Alarmed he ran to a physician, a friend of 
his. The diagnosis was terrifying. The two fingers 
were paralyzed. But he only emitted a bitter laugh. 
'‘What a beneficent deity we have! God is reducing 
the strength of my left hand that I may strike the 
harder with my right.” 

He jested about his deformity but it struck terror 
at his heart. It was not the fear of death but the fear 
of dying. He had seen death in all its grimness, when 
the cholera raged in Paris the year before. No, it 
was not death he feared but the approach of death. 
Indeed, he was getting old and dying. Perspiration 
burst over him. Pie recalled that the Weltschmerz 
which had gripped him so mercilessly in his youth had 
relaxed its hold on him since his arrival in Paris. And 
the Weltschmerz is the elixir of youth. Want of 
restlessness is want of life-force. 

He wanted no sympathy. He had promised Prin¬ 
cess Pampini to call on her that morning but he could 
not force himself to go to her. It was not vanity be¬ 
cause his fingers were crippled but he would not listen 
to condolence. 

As he thought of the princess a smile passed over 
his face. People were gossiping about his being in 
love with hen He could no more be in love with her 
than he could have been in love with Rahel. No, he 
could not be in love with anybody any more ... He 
sighed disconsolately. No wonder the heights of Par- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


297 


nassus had been denied him in the past two years. 
Love and song were no longer for him. . . 

In despair he wandered through the streets, fre¬ 
quently touching and fondling the numb fingers of his 
left hand with those of his right. He sought to dis¬ 
sipate his sorrow in motion. Pretty women walked 
past him but he glanced at them with trepidation. He 
saw their beauty but could feel no inner thrill. Yes, 
the glow of life was fast ebbing away from him. 
Youth and love and song were all dead in his heart. 

He had reached the Porte St. Martin and turned 

into a side street. He wished to be alone, in a street 

less frequented by the young and gay. The sight of 
the young and gay around him was too tantalizing. 
He was brooding. Such was the irony of life. No 
sooner had he begun to enjoy life than life began to 
flee. Was not that the allegory of Moses on Mount 
Nebo? 

Like another Faust—nay, like another Koheleth, the 
Preacher—Albert mused on the vanities and uselessness 
of life. It is only he whose eyes penetrate behind the 
scenes of life that can scoff and cry Havel havolim, 

vanity of vanities; and one’s eyes scarcely ever pene¬ 

trate the mystery of life until one is about ready to 
relinquish it. In the heart of a forest one does not see 
the forest. “I have seen all the works that are done 
under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation 
of spirit.” 

Ah, indeed, every man must write his own Faust as 
he must brood over his own Ecclesiastes! Albert had 
often said this to himself and friends, and he now un¬ 
derstood the full import of his saying. Like all true 
humorists, he passed quickly from mirth to sadness. 


298 


THE SUBLIME JESTEI 


There was nothing in life for him any longer, and it 
did not matter if he could only go to his lodging, fall 
asleep, and never wake again. 

He was making his way blindly through the quiet 
street, oblivious to everything about him, when his 
ears caught the humming of a street song, the snatch 
of a song which was then popular in Paris and played 
by every hurdy-gurdy. He raised his eyes and be¬ 
held a young girl, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years 
old, standing in the doorway of a little shop, her hands 
stuck in the pockets of a white apron over her black 
skirt. There was the gleam of a cheerful smile on her 
comely countenance, and as he raised his eyes she 
stopped humming the song and looked at him with 
the candor and shyness of a child. 

He was about to continue his walk when he re¬ 
membered that he needed a pair of shoes, which were 
less costly on the side streets than on the Boulevards. 
He halted, hesitated, took a step back, and entered the 
shoe shop; the girl turned on her heel and followed 
him in. 

Suddenly all his sadness fled, all his brooding 
thoughts vanished. He was conscious of a thrill in his 
heart and of the sweetness of living. The face be¬ 
fore him was one mirroring youth and the ignorance 
of youth, eyes that sparkled, seeing only the surface 
of life. And in every line of her figure, in every 
movement of hers, was immaturity. 

While he was examining a pair of shoes a heavy- 
set woman, with purple cheeks, stuck her head through 
a door in the rear, and said something about showing 
the gentleman the new style of footwear they had 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


299 


received the day before. What was there in the girl's 
voice that made something within him vibrate? 

He began to take off his left shoe. 

“Not the left but the right, monsieur and she 
emitted a little laugh with the unrestraint of a child. 

He did as he was bidden, and felt a peculiar inti¬ 
macy as the girl bent down to help him slip on the 
new shoe. As she bent forward his eyes rested on 
her lustrous black hair—wavy without being curly— 
combed back from her low forehead. 

He was thinking of Miriam, the girl of Gnesen. 
There was a striking resemblance between the two, 
except that the girl before him had somnolent black 
eyes while the iris in Miriam’s eyes were of a deep 
dark-blue. There was the same lack of artifice in her 
speech, the same touch of tenderness in her voice. 
Likewise was her face a book with blank pages. 

He lingered in the little shop even after he had made 
his purchase. Was the woman who had spoken 
through the doorway her mother? No, she was an 
aunt, for whom she was working. Her mother lived 
in the country, in a little village near Nantes, and her 
mother had sent her to Paris to earn her living. Was 
her mother poor? Yes, very, very poor. 

“Where do you come from?” she presently questioned 
him with equal candor, and looked up into his face 
without the least embarrassment. 

“Where do you think?” 

The deep corners of his large mouth drooped and 
there was a faint smile on his oval face. 

She straightened up, her hands now behind her, her 
eyes resting on his light-brown hair, on his thoughtful 
face. 


300 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“From—from Normandy—all the men in Normandy 
are blond and have bluish eyes-” 

He laughed with frank amusement, the amusement 
a child's talk provokes, and told her his eyes only 
seemed blue but they were greenish. 

“But a thing is only what it seemes, ,, she said, with 
naive protest. 

“I grant you it is good philosophy but not all phil¬ 
osophy is truth." 

There was a comical expression on his face as he 
uttered the last, and she looked puzzled. A bit of shy¬ 
ness came over her. 

“So you can’t guess where I come from,” he said, 
looking tenderly at her. Then he added, as if speaking 
to himself, “I come from a country where they wish 
I had come from another country, and if I had come 
from another country they would have wished the 
same.” 

He threw his head back and laughed but not without 
a touch of bitterness in his tone. 

She did not understand him. There was perplexity 
in the girl’s face. No one had ever looked at her in 
this manner. There was something beseeching in his 
half-closed eyes, something eloquently covetous, and 
he gazed at her as if she were an inanimate thing, a 
picture or statue of the masters in the Louvre. 

His next question sounded still more puzzling. Was 
she always in the shop? What a question! She wasr 
either in the shop or in the rear helping with the house¬ 
work. Her employer was not boarding her and paying 
her mother ten francs a month for nothing! 

As he was leaving he suddenly turned around and 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


301 


asked her name. “Marguerite,” she told him. He 
said he would like to be her Faust. 

She looked at him incomprehensively and said, “Vous 
ctes drole” 

“You are not the only one who thinks me funny/' 
he replied. 

She laughed. 

He walked away with drooping head and lagging 
step. 

II. 

He was soon on Boulevard Strassbourg, a mere drop 
of spray in the human tide. People were coming and 
going, chatting and laughing, the zest of life every¬ 
where. He, too, now felt the zest of life. He was no 
longer feeling that the marrow of his life had dried 
up. There was spring in his heart, the sap of re¬ 
newed life was flowing through his veins; no, he was 
not dying. He was humming to himself a few verses 
of an old song of his, which had been set to music by 
an admirer. 

Yes, sadness was creeping into his heart and envelop¬ 
ing his whole being, but it was not the sadness that pos¬ 
sessed him earlier in the day. It was the sadness of 
longing, of woeful longing, the sadness of music in a 
minor key, which thrilled him even as it kept tugging 
at his hearstrings. Suddenly, oblivious of the people 
that were passing, he paused, and, clenching his fists 
with joy vibrating through the whole being, his face 
beaming with a strange light, he uttered, almost loud 
enough to be heard by passersby, “I am myself again— 
love has returned!” 

And love had returned. He was his old self again. 


302 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


Youth had come back. His features had almost 
changed. There came a new softness in his eyes, 
languor in his face, the dreaminess of his student days. 
He had not been in love since Miriam had gone back 
to marry the drover’s son. He had known friendship 
but not love. 

He was not trying to argue himself out of his sud¬ 
den passion for the girl in the shoe shop; he was only 
explaining himself to himself. What did it matter so 
long as love had again entered his heart, so long as he 
was restless with the yearnings and longings of his 
student days, so long as he felt the ache of blossoming 
youth ! Indeed, what else mattered! 

He went to his room and wrote a poem. He had 
not been in the mood for writing verse since his ar¬ 
rival in Paris, but now melody flowed from his soul. 
He could think of nothing, of nobody, but Marguerite. 
And he lost himself in reverie about her sweetly pout¬ 
ing lips, her well-formed nose, her glistening white 
teeth, the faint dimples in her cheeks. There was 
child-like beauty and sweetness in her face and speech, 
and it was that child-like quality in her that had cap¬ 
tivated his imagination and passion. 

He was too impetuous to lay plans. He could not 
lay siege to his citadel. He would either win it by 
storm or go down to defeat in the assault. 

The next day he was again at the shoe shop without 
even the subtle subterfuge of the lover. He offered 
no excuses, invented no pretences to account for his 
call. He sat down and gazed at her rapturously and 
called her Marguerite, and repeated the name again 
and again, lisping it, murmuring it, echoing it as if 
it were a melodious term. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


303 


Marguerite at first laughed and told him he was 
foolish but by and by new tints came into the pink 
of her cheeks and she smiled confusedly—with the 
confusion of a child who does not know why it is 
confused—and there came a shimmering heat in the 
lustrous pupils of her eyes. Her heart beat tumul¬ 
tuously when he looked at her, and his words seemed 
so caressing. Sometimes he gazed at her as if he did 
not see her at all and then he would say, “How beauti¬ 
ful your voice sounds!” and when he caught hold of 
an edge of her apron he fondled it as if he had passed 
his hand over her bare skin. 

One day he took hold of her fingers and kissed the 
tips of every one of them. She never forgot that 
day. She thought she ought not to let him kiss her 
fingers but she liked the sensation and yielded. 

And when a few days later she found herself in his 
arms she feigned no resistance. She craved the touch 
of his lips and of his tender embraces and the endear¬ 
ing names he called her and had no objections to be¬ 
ing his Marguerite. 


III. 

At last the longing of his youth—the longing which 
he had dissipated in dreams and song—were gratified. 
Marguerite was his. In her he saw the fulfillment of 
the promises of Hedwiga, of Hilda, of Eugenie, of 
Miriam. His soul was steeped in dreams, in imaginary 
romances, and he would not part with his dreams even 
when love had become a reality. He had brought to 
Marguerite all the pent-up passion that lay slumbering 
in his soul, all which he would have lavished on Hed- 


304 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


wiga, on Hilda, on Eugenie, on Miriam. Realities are 
dreams to the poet as dreams are realities to him. 
What was wanting in the guileless country girl his 
romantic imagination supplied. What he had found es¬ 
pecially fascinating about his beloved was her want of 
sophistication. When he proposed that she come and 
live with him in his two-room apartment she readily 
consented despite the protests of her relatives. 

Nor was he disillusioned after she had gone to live 
with him. He had no illusions about her save her 
physical charms. He was sick at heart of the artifice 
of the chatter of the women of the drawingroom, and 
enjoyed the sweet naturalness of this woman child. 
And she obeyed his mandates. She sat for hours knit¬ 
ting or eating bonbons without uttering a syllable while 
he was absorbed in his writing. She did not know 
what he was writing about, nor did she have sufficient 
curiosity to find out, and he loved her for her silence. 
He thought the price of a woman who could keep still 
for hours “far above rubies and precious ointment/’ 

His life would have been perfect could he have im¬ 
pressed the wisdom of silence on Marguerite’s pet par¬ 
rot, but he was soon reconciled to his chatter since that 
was the parrot’s business. At least the parrot prattled 
the only things he knew. Albert wished some of the 
savants of his day would emulate the parrot’s example. 

The love of Albert and Marguerite did not run 
smoothly, however. They quarreled, and quarreled 
frequently, but then Albert knew he had an uncontrol- 
able temper and that she was sometimes unreasonable. 
And she did not like those queer countrymen of his 
to intrude upon him so often. But after each tilt he 
became more tender, more solicitous, and called her 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


305 


a thousand more endearing names, and she nestled 
closer to him and loved her Albert more than ever. 

In the early stages of their love they had two seri¬ 
ous ruptures. Each time they parted she went 
back to her relatives and he went to the seashore to 
mend his shattered nerves, but no sooner had he re¬ 
turned to Paris than he went to the Philistines and 
demanded his wife, and, unlike the people of Timnath, 
Marguerite’s aunt at once complied with his demand 
and nothing disastrous happened. Lover and beloved 
went back to their two room apartment, he to write 
and she to knit and eat bonbons and to quarrel as of 
yore. 

IV. 

He was supremely happy —Wie ein Fisch im Wasser 
—in spite of his slight deformity. He was industrious, 
had finished another volume of poems and was making 
mental notes for a dramatic poem. 

He was not fond of the German refugees in Paris. 
Now and then there came a refugee of real worth— 
but most of them were without talent, without any 
well defined idea of what they wanted, and only 
plumed themselves with the title of revolutionaries. 
Paris in those days was a hotbed of revolutionists; 
Mazzini with his carbonari, plotters from Portugal, 
insurgents from Poland, assassins from Spain. Prus¬ 
sian spies were abundant and very active, and the 
French government was secretly lending a helping hand 
to rid Paris of these stirring elements. Louis Phil- 
lipe had enough to contend with without foreign in¬ 
triguers. 

Albert was living quietly in a district inhabited by 


306 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


the genteel poor—clerks, journalists, small shop-keep¬ 
ers, artists—and kept aloof from his compatriots. But 
the news he was receiving from '‘home”—for he 
never ceased thinking of Germany as his home— 
was disquieting. The news came to him from various 
sources, but chiefly from pilgrims who were coming to 
worship at his shrine. Every aspiring poet, every 
young writer with an idea in his head, every agitator, 
came either to pay homage to his genius or to see the 
poet in exile in order to give first-hand information to 
their friends at home. Albert had the misfortune of 
having had woven around him myths and legends that 
reflected upon his morality. To the Germans he was 
a Don Juan. His flippant speech (often only the 
flash of the moment), his witty epigrams (at times 
uttered for the sheer love of wit), his blasphemy (rare¬ 
ly intended), gave credence to all the shocking things 
his enemies told about him. Furthermore, his im¬ 
aginary love affairs narrated, and hinted at, in his 
poems were taken too literally. His countrymen failed 
to realize that one actually given to licentiousness 
rarely writes about it, never glorifies it in song and 
rhapsodies; that one who yields to dissipation rarely 
indulges in sweet day dreams about it. The Germans 
have always been too stolid, too ponderous, too mat¬ 
ter of fact to comprehend the subtlety of fine humor. 
While an elephant can easily lift a log with his trunk 
he is quite helpless with a feather. 

V. 

One day he was at work in his room, Marguerite 
and the parrot in the other room, the door between 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


307 


them shut. Marguerite had found a way of keeping 
the parrot quiet when Albert was at work. A family 
with small children had recently moved in on the 
floor below and their noises were irritating Albert 
beyond endurance, so Marguerite was taking pains to 
keep the parrot quiet. She was feeding him bonbons 
and carrying on a deaf-and-dumb conversation with 
the hook-nosed chatterer. 

“You mustn't make a sound,” she whispered in a 
soft lisp, as if talking to a babe, and waved an ad¬ 
monishing finger. “Not the least bit of sound, for 
we don’t want Albert to be angry, do we?” 

The parrot buried his beak in the down under his 
left wing and muffled his suppressed laughter. 

“There goes the postman! That fool, he rings the 
doorbell as if the house were on fire! Albert has 
told him a thousand times not to do it in the morn¬ 
ing as it disturbs his thoughts-” 

The door soon opened with an abrupt jerk and 
Albert, in a long Schlafrock (lounging robe) appeared 
in the doorway. His hair dishevelled, a look of unen¬ 
durable annoyance on his face, his eyes contracted and 
intense, he clenched his fists and almost shouted— 
“Can’t you tell that fool to stop ringing? I can hear 
every bell in the neighborhood when that imbecile 
makes his rounds. I was in the midst of a sentence 
and, bah!—that fool comes along with his clamor and 
I forget what I was going to say—my whole drift of 
thought is lost—just when my writing was coming 
along so easily he comes along and kills my morning’s 
work—that idiot!” 


308 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

“I told him a number of times not to ring so loud,” 
Marguerite struck in. 

“You told him! You don’t think he is doing it to 
spite me! That postman and the parrot are a pair!” 

“The parrot! He never opened his month. He was 
as quiet as a mouse all morning. You blame him for 
everything.—” Marguerite’s voice was becoming lach¬ 
rymose. “You hate him because I love him so. Poor 
dear!” She nestled close to the parrot’s cage. “It is 
about time that both you and I go—Albert loves neither 
of us any longer-” 

Marguerite’s chin began to quiver, the dimples in her 
cheeks appeared and disappeared, and presently the 
deluge. She dropped into a chair and the tears soon 
flowed through her fingers, with which she covered 
her eyes. 

He rushed up to her with a gesture of helplessness. 

“What are you crying about? It’s I who ought to 
cry—a fine morning’s work gone because that stupid 
postman rings the doorbell as if he were a Prussian 
officer. Am I blaming you?” 

“If — y 0U — loved — me — you — wouldn’t — 
talk — that — way —” Her words came between sobs. 

He strode across the room and waved his arms in 
despair. He gnashed his teeth but said nothing. 

“You see, you wouldn’t even deny it—you know you 
don’t love me any longer. I know, I know, yesterday 
at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs with those funny Ger¬ 
mans of yours you sat at the table and talked of n6th¬ 
ing but the Princess Pompani. You think because I 
don’t understand German you can talk of your other 
loves with impunity—but I understand what Primes - 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


309 


sin means—every minute it was Prinzessin this and 
Primes sin that—” 

She lapsed into convulsive sobbing. 

Suddenly he burst out laughing. 

“Yes, you laugh because you have no heart and be¬ 
cause you make me suffer-” 

The next moment he walked up to her, gently passed 
his hand over her hair and tried to embrace her but 
she pushed him away- 

“Don’t touch me—I know when you touch me you 
are thinking you are passing your hands over the Prin¬ 
cess—” 

Albert was still laughing softly and trying to remove 
her hands from her face. 

“Don’t you come near me—don’t-” 

He had succeeded in pulling her hands away from 
her face and in giving her a grazing kiss on her lips. 

“Aren’t you silly, my sweet little Nonette (one of 
his endearing nicknames)’’. “Look at me!’’ He was 
holding her face between his hands, trying to make her 
look at him, but she tightened her eyelids and pulled 
away from him. 

“No, I won’t look at you until you stop loving that 
Princess-” 

He laughed indulgently. 

“What a child you are. You know I don’t love any¬ 
body but my sweet little kitten with those dear little 
dimples”—he kissed her on both cheeks, and catching 
her unawares, pressed a kiss on her mouth. 

“Aren’t you silly?” he continued as he wiped her 
gathered tears. “Here I am working so hard to get 
a little more money so that we may be able to move 
away from this clattering neighborhood to a cozy little 


310 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


apartment on Rue St. Honore and you blame me for 
getting angry at that stupid postman!” 

“I told the concierge only yesterday that unless she 
made the children behave we would have to move.” 
Her voice sounded half reconciled but her eyes were 
still averted from him. 

“You sweet little monkey!” 

He embraced her affectionately and she rested on his 
arms without resistance. 

“Ha-ha! Ha—ha! —Ha—ha!” 

“Shut up, you fool!’ she turned angrily upon the 
laughing parrot. 

“No one is a fool who can laugh,” Albert said wist¬ 
fully, with a sad smile on his face. “Come on, let’s all 
laugh—Ha—ha! Ha—ha!” he mimicked the parrot, 
and Marguerite presently joined in the laughter. 

“I am nearly through with my book” he presently 
consoled her, “and I think I can make that miserly pub¬ 
lisher in Berlin advance me five thousand francs on my 
royalties, and I have my eye on a beautiful apartment 
on Rue St. Honore overlooking a garden. I think I’ll 
be able to buy you the earrings you saw in the display 
window the other day and-” 

There was a knock on the door and they both 
jumped up, Albert went to the door. 

The concierge was standing with a packet of letters 
and newspapers. 

Albert thanked the concierge profusely, tipped her 
liberally, and scanned the envelopes. 

“Here is a letter from the publisher,” he exclaimed 
jubilantly. “I’ll bet the rascal offers me only three thou¬ 
sand francs as an advance for my next volume. He al- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


311 


ways likes to bargain. If I had asked for three thou¬ 
sand he would have offered me one-” 

“Why didn’t you ask him for ten, he might have then 
offered you five,” she counselled. 

“I didn’t want him to get apoplexy—” he laughed. 

He tore the envelope and while removing the con¬ 
tents continued talking half to himself, half to Mar¬ 
guerite. 

“What a long letter—I know—he is telling me, I sup¬ 
pose, how much he has lost on my other books. That 
rogue! He has grown rich on my sweat and blood and 
is always whining how little there is in the publishing 
business and throws me a pittance! Huh! What’s that!” 
His eyelids came close together as he continued turning 
the pages and there was a deep dent between his eyes. 
“The dogs!-” 

“What’s the matter, my dear?” she looked up anx¬ 
iously at Albert’s agitated countenance. 

For a moment he did not answer her. Then, with the 
loose sheets of the letter in one hand, the large square 
envelope in the other, he paced up and down the room, 
frowning, uncontrollable rage in his eyes. 

“Those vultures are trying to wrest the very bread 
from my mouth, but they shall see, I won’t sit idle 
either.” He still talked half to himself, half to the 
puzzled Marguerite. 

He suddenly remained standing stock still in the 
middle of the room, his eyes barely open. Then, without 
saying a word, he rushed to the adjoining room, put the 
sheets of manuscript in order and stowed them safely 
into a drawer, exchanged his Schlafrock for a more fit¬ 
ting coat for the street, and was presently ready to leave, 
Marguerite following him attentively, almost mutely, 


312 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

and helping him with his toilet. She knew that some¬ 
thing was irritating her Albert but he had often told 
her she could not understand his inner disturbances so 
she did not press him with further questions. But pres¬ 
ently he volunteered enlightenment. 

‘They have forbidden my books in Prussia, and not 
only those I have published but even those I might pub¬ 
lish. The publisher says he can’t send me a sou under 
the circumstances, and that he, too, will be ruined.” 

Ihe want of money was quite intelligible to Margue¬ 
rite. She knew that without money they could not move 
to the cozy little apartment on Rue St. Honore and she 
wouldn t be able to get those coveted earrings. 

“What’s the difference?” she soon consoled him, “you 
can write for the French papers. The Germans are 
queer anyhow.” 

For a bare second Marguerite’s stupidity and simplic¬ 
ity irritated him but before his anger had gathered he 
glanced at her child-like face, her doting eyes, clasped 
her in his arms and dashed out of the house. 

“Yes, I’ll be back in time for dinner. We’ll go to 
the Ambassadeurs tonight,” he comforted her as he 
closed the door. 


VI. 

The information that the German Diet had prohibited 
the publication of his books had so upset him that he 
could not think clearly. It seemed to him that some sini¬ 
ster fate was always interfering with his work. At first 
it was the parrot, who chattered volubly, and when he 
had trained him to keep still in the morning, a whole 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


313 


brood of children moved in on the floor below and in¬ 
sisted on doing all their crying during the hours he had 
set aside for writing; and when by chance everyone was 
quiet it usually happened that just then he was not in 
the mood for writing. He thought it strange that all 
noises came when he was in the best of moods. Yes, 
it must be the fates who were always pursuing him. 
This morning everything had moved so smoothly. He 
had felt as if he had been on wings, his thoughts came 
flying, and the expressions he wanted were coming so 
spontaneously that he could scarcely write fast enough 
when that idiot of a postman began his clamorous ring¬ 
ing! Well, the bad news could have waited until his 
morning’s work was done! Ah! fate, cruel fate, had been 
tormenting him from his very cradle! 

He was walking down the street rather rapidly, his 
inner agitation gaining momentum. It was early in De¬ 
cember and the air was cold and refreshing. He could 
not understand why the Diet should have decreed against 
his writings, especially now when he was preaching 
moderation. Goethe’s and Lessing’s works had never 
been forbidden! Goethe had always been anti-Christian, 
quite pagan, and Lessing was a veritable iconoclast, and 
yet the government had never taken measures against 
them! An unpleasant thought was intruding upon him. 
He tried to force this unpleasant thought away. In the 
past six years he had banished this unpleasant thought 
by sheer force whenever it sought admission into his 
brain. His life in Paris would not permit him to dwell 
upon this unpleasant thought. But now it took hold of 
him in spite of himself. The Prussians would not for¬ 
give his Jewish blood! The mark of Cain was on his 
brow! Genius or no genius, it did not matter. Ah, 


314 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


those narrow minded tyrants! They shall see—the 
whole pack of them—he would smite those Philistines 
hip and thigh! 

As he proceeded on his walk he was mentally word¬ 
ing a reply to the Prussian Diet . He felt himself a Lu¬ 
ther standing before the King. Indeed, like the man 
of Worms, he would not recant. He was smiting the 
Philistines. He was not sparing them. His words 
were molten lead. He would pour it red hot upon 
their stupid heads. He would avenge himself on all 
of them—on the Aristocrats and the Democrats. They 
had both combined to annihilate him but he would pull 
the temple down upon them. 

Under the heat of composition his face brightened, 
his eyes were aglow, his step became more elastic and 
rapid He was almost glad that this ha'd happened. His 
fire was kindled with greater fury. 

But he soon remembered that his funds were ex¬ 
hausted. His uncle Leopold’s quarter-annual stipend 
was two months away, the Revue des Deux Mondes 
had already advanced him for his next contribution, 
his publisher would certainly not send him a sou at 
present, and the four hundred Thaler he had borrowed 
from a friend were nearly gone. His gait slackened, 
his countenance fell, the light was out of his eyes. Yes, 
he must seek counsel. He must not act too rashly. His 
left hand was troubling him and he was afraid the 
paralysis of his two fingers was spreading. He must 
seek counsel. 

He thought of a few influential friends, who were 
then in Paris. They were admirers of his and, he was 
sure, would be glad to intercede for him. But, no, he 
would ask no assistance from a Prussian. He would 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


315 


—the thought of Princess Pampini came to him like a 
ray of light. She could give him the right advice. If 
influence was needed she could use it. She had pow¬ 
erful friends in Paris, men close to King Louis Phil- 
lippe. Thiers and Guizot were frequent callers at her 
home. And he soon remembered that he had received 
a note from her, reproaching him for his absence from 
her soirees. The thought of the princess cheered him. 
He directed his steps toward Rue de Courcelles, her 
present dwelling. 


VII. 

On his way home from the visit with the Princess a 
flitting thought disturbed him. Yes, the fates did com¬ 
bine against him. Why was he always falling in love 
with stupid women? If only he had a life-companion 
like the Princess! He needed some one to counsel him, 
to guide him. 

Presently he was passing the jewelry shop where 
Marguerite had seen those coveted earrings. He vis¬ 
ualized her with those earrings. He could see a hun¬ 
dred eyes gazing at her as she entered the Cafe des 
Ambassadeurs on his arm, with her beautiful flushed 
cheeks, vivacious black eyes, and her exquisite little 
figure. She was beautiful—that child! The next mo¬ 
ment he was in the shop, before the jewelry counter, 
holding the earrings on the palm of his hand, turning 
them this way and that. Would the gentleman behind 
the counter lay them aside for a week? He was sure 
he would have the money by that time. Yes, the gentle¬ 
man behind the counter was very affable and accom- 


316 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


modating. “You see, monsieur, I am putting them 
aside and will hold them for you until a week from 
tomorrow—thank you, monsieur 

Albert sped home exultantly. He was optimistic. He 
did not see clearly how such a miracle could happen, 
how the money for the earrings would come to him— 
a thousand francs !—but he had hopes. He was glad he 
had talked with Princess Pampini. He would follow her 
advice and instead of protesting just request the Ger¬ 
man government to reconsider the decree against him; 
and then his publisher would advance him the five 
thousand francs—three thousand, at least. 

He ran up the three flights of stairs to his apart¬ 
ment with boyish glee and, embracing Marguerite, 
whispered in her sweet little ear that he had a great 
surprise in store for her. No; he could not tell her 
what it was, but she must wait patiently a week, and 
tonight they would dine at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs . 
He would order the same menu they had been served 
a week ago. 

“Wasn’t that a fine meal, hein? A feast to be eaten 
on one’s knees!” Albert’s eyes glowed with ecstasy as 
he recalled that dinner. 

You are the most wonderful lover in the world, my 
Albert, Marguerite threw her round warm arms 
around his neck and pressed him to her breast. 

Presently he was seated at his desk writing his ad¬ 
dress to the High Diet. He was checking his propen¬ 
sity to be bitter, cynical, satirical. He repeated the 
words under his breath as he put them on paper, think¬ 
ing of Princess Pampini’s counsel. 

When he had finished his long letter he felt as if 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


317 


a great burden had been lifted. He read, and trans¬ 
lated it, to Marguerite, who, with arms folded and 
eyes staring blankly in front of her, listened attentive¬ 
ly but without hearing a word of it. She was wonder¬ 
ing what surprise Albert had in store for her next week. 


VIII. 

The miracle had happened. A week later Albert had 
the thousand francs with which to purchase the ear¬ 
rings so much desired by his dimple-cheeked Nonette. 
Though very rational in his beliefs, and having scoffed 
so frequently at Biblical miracles, he experienced a 
secret sense of awe and wonderment as he thought of 
the unexpected source of this bounty. And it had come 
to him in the mysterious manner that invariably ushers 
in miraculous events. 

Six days after he had last visited the Princess Pam- 
pini a document, bearing the government seal of the 
reign of King Louis Philippe, was delivered to him in 
person. Albert’s heart was quivering with fright when 
the official-looking paper was handed him. He had an 
innate dread of official papers. He unfolded the con¬ 
tents of the sealed envelope with trembling hands and 
to his amazement found an endorsed order for twelve 
hundred francs. A brief note, signed by the Minister 
of Public Instruction, accompanied the money order. 
The Minister expressed his personal friendship and ad¬ 
miration for the poet. 

“Marguerite! Marguerite! A letter from the king!” 
he cried jubilantly, as he rushed to Marguerite who 
was trimming a hat. 


318 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

She looked up incredulously. Albert was such a 
jester; one never knew when to take him seriously. 

He showed her the money order, pointing to the 
numerals, 1200 . 

‘‘The king has sent this to me from his own treas¬ 
ury,” he added. “He read my writings and likes 
them. And every three months he will send me an ad¬ 
ditional twelve hundred francs.” 

He threw his arms around her and kissed her. 

“Now we’ll be able to move to Rue St. Honore,” she 
reminded him. 

“No, not yet. We must wait a little while. We must 
wait until I get the remittance from my publisher. His 
heart will soften as soon as the Diet cancels its de¬ 
cree.” 

“What will you do with the twelve hundred?” 

“Don’t worry—I’ll know what to do with it-” 

“I know, you’ll put it in the bank, you miser-” 

Her countenance fell. Albert had been complaining 
of late of his extravagances and regretting that he had 
saved nothing from his large earnings during the past 
five years. He had told her that from now on he 
would be very economical and lay something aside for 
a rainy day. 

He was wistful. He was thinking of the earrings and 
wished to guard his surprise. 

“Will you put away all of it?” 

Anger was gathering in her pretty face. Since the 
king had become his friend she could not see why 
Albert should want to save any money after this. She 
had hoped he would at least take her that evening to 
one of the cafes. 



THE SUBLIME JESTER 


319 


“No, no, I won’t put it all away,” he said joyfully, 
fondling her. 

“You are becoming stingy,” she said sullenly, and 
tried to disengage herself from his embrace. 

“You don’t call a man who tries to lay aside a few 
francs for a rainy day, stingy—do you?” 

Presently he was fully dressed and he dashed out 
of the house, the happiest of mortals. He ran down 
the three flights of steps like a little boy speeding to 
join his waiting playmates. And he kept running thru 
the streets, seeing no one until he reached the jewelry 
shop. ^ 

He was soon back, with flushed face and panting, 
a nice little box in his breast pocket. Marguerite was 
addressing the parrot when Albert opened the door. 
She was telling the parrot that Albert was a great 
pobte allemand and the sweetest lover in the world, 
even though he was stingy at times. And the parrot 
laughed—“Ha—ha! Ha—ha! Ha—ha!” 

“Close your eyes, my sweet monkey,” Albert com¬ 
manded. 

“You did not spend any money on a present for me, 
you extravagant boy!” 

“Close your eyes and keep them closed until I count 
three!” 

He kissed her and closed her eyes with the tips of 
his fingers. 

“One—two—three!” 

She opened her eyes upon a pair of sparkling ear¬ 
rings. 

“Albert! You spendthrift!” 

At seven-thirty the following evening the people 
seated against the mirrored walls of the Ca/e des Am- 


320 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


bassadeurs cast glances of unconcealed admiration at 
the pretty woman on the arm of the renowned pohte 
allemand. There was pride in his keen eyes as he 
caught the admiring glances and nodded allmost tri¬ 
umphantly to his acquaintances. He was quite exultant 
and carefree, with all the melody of the Song of Songs 
in his heart. 


IX. 

Albert Zorn now found himself attacking, and at¬ 
tacked by, the reactionaries in the Fatherland and the 
extreme radicals in Paris. At last the Junkers and the 
Jacobines joined hands to down him, their common foe. 
The pension granted by the king was the peg on which 
they hung their calumnies. And helped by the Prus¬ 
sian High Diet he was even denied the right to defend 
himself against this fabricated charge of disloyalty. 
However, this did not muzzle the valiant fighter. 
Screened by a pseudonym he returned blow for blow. 
Before the censor had become aware of his identity, 
his devastating irony was again felt in Germany. 

And in spite of the growing paralysis of his left 
hand he worked indefatigably. He penned poems, 
critical essays, satires, political tracts, with the same 
spirit runing through them all; the emancipation of the 
enslaved Prussian mind from the influence of the 
Junkers. 

One day a compatriot challenged him to a duel. His 
compatriot had taken exception to an insinuation 
against a close friend of his in one of Albert Zorn's 
recent books. True, Albert did not believe in the bar- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


321 


baric custom of duelling but he would pot have any 
one charge him with cowardice, moral or physical. In¬ 
deed, he was ready to meet his adversary with any 
weapons he might choose. 

The only thing that distressed him was Marguerite's 
condition, should the duel prove fatal to him. 

“Marguerite!—Marguerite!-’ 

Albert was calling her from the adjoining room. It 
was twilight, the dim twilight of a summer day. His 
voice sounded softer, more kindly than ever. 

Albert was in the living-room. It was a small room, 
with a white marble mantle over the fireplace and a 
large mirror above it. The open windows opposite 
were reflected in the mirror. He was seated, an elbow 
on the arm of his chair, his cheek against the palm of 
his left hand, his legs outstretched, wistfully thinking, 
a strange melancholy in his half-closed eyes. His usual 
impatience was lacking. 

Presently Marguerite appeared. She seemed unusual¬ 
ly pretty. Her plump figure had never looked so comely 
and her eyes never sparkled with more vivacity. She 
paused for a moment coquettishly, inviting inspection. 
Should she make a light? No, he did not care for a 
light. He could see how beautiful she was even in the 
dim light of the setting sun. 

He languidly stretched out his right hand and she 
came closer to him and placed her hand in his. Ah! 
she knew how to humor her Albert when he was in 
a melancholy mood, and her Albert was never more 
amiable and kind than when in this mood. Though 
jocular he could not hide his melancholy the past few 
days, and though he might think her a fool, and with- 


322 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


out much brains, she understood every passing mood 
of his. No, indeed, all his friends were telling her what 
a great man Albert was, and how subtle and profound 
he was, but she knew better than any of them. She 
knew he was as simple minded as a child. Albert often 
called her his child—a lot he knew! It was he who 
needed mothering from his Marguerite. 

The next moment she was on his knees, her lips 
against his forehead, a hand through his soft hair. He 
responded quickly to tenderness and pressed his lips 
against her fingers. There was mist in his eyes. He 
had been thinking very much of her the past few days ; 
in fact, all his thoughts were of her. He had just come 
from a notary and made his will, leaving everything he 
possessed to her. 

They were seated in silence for a short space, the 
clock on the mantle ticking strange melodies. Albert 
often heard this French clock tick German folk songs. 
He often wondered why Marguerite could not hear 
these songs—the only one she could make out was La 
Parisienne, and even this one only when Albert 
hummed it and used his hand as a baton. 

“We are going to get married, Marguerite,” he sud¬ 
denly announced. 

Her hand gripped his involuntarily and for a few 
seconds she made no sound. Her brain could not quite 
comprehend his statement. She had never asked him 
to marry her legally and he had never spoken of it. 

“Are you ill—What is troubling you?” she was al¬ 
most breathless with anxiety. 

“No, my kitten,” he made an effort to talk in a 
light tone and encircled her waist with his arm. “It 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


323 


has just occurred to me that in case anything should 
happen to me—in case I die—you understand-” 

“But what put dying into your head all of a sud¬ 
den ?” There was terror in her voice. 

“Nothing—nothing particularly—“he was forcing an 
indifferent tone—“the thought occurred to me today 
as I was passing the Boulevard. A horse slipped and 
fell and hurt a pedestrian. One thought brought an¬ 
other—don’t you see, I was thinking an accident might 
happen to me—what would become of you?” 

Her eyes quickly filled with tears and there were 
tears in her voice. She did not want her Albert to die 
and if he died she might as well die, too. M,arriage or 
no marriage, it made no difference to her. Many men 
had flirted with her and tried to win her away from 
him—yes, even a few of his friends—yes, all men were 
alike. Whenever they saw a pretty young woman, they 
wanted to appropriate her, be she a friend’s wife or 
mistress. No, indeed, it made no difference to her. She 
had gone to live with him because she loved him and 
would never leave him, marriage or no marriage. 

Apprends done she was saying, “ que jamais je nc 
te quitterai, que tu m’aimes ou non , que tu m’epouses 
ou non y que tu me maltraites ou non , jamais je ne te 
quitterai. Entends-tu bienf Jamais! jamais!” 

No, indeed, it made no difference to her, marriage 
or no marriage, whether or not he loved her, whether 
or not he’d ever ill-treat her, she’d never leave him— 
never! never! never! If he was proposing marriage to 
her because perchance he was jealous for a moment 
and thought some one might wean her away from him 
he need have no fear on that score. 

He kissed her fingers in silence; there was ecstasy 


324 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


in his soul. He remembered the speech of Ruth when 
Naomi counselled her return to her people. 

Presently Marguerite was sobbing on his breast. Her 
Albert was speaking and acting strangely. Had he been 
to see a physician, who had told him he could not live 
long? What did physicians know—indeed, what did 
they know? Her Albert would outlive them all. And 
she would take care of her Albert better than all the 
nurses in Paris and she would always be faithful to 
him. Oh, her poor Albert! What had put such foolish 
thoughts into his brain? 

He cleared his throat, wiped the tears out of the 
corners of his eyes, and spoke light-heartedly. No, he 
had seen no physician and his health was good and he 
did not expect to die. He wanted to marry her for her 
own sake; he wanted no one ever to cast reflections 
upon her relationship with him. How would she be 
married—would she like to have a religious marriage? 
Yes, indeed, he would marry her in any manner it 
pleased her. 

Since Albert insisted upon a legal bond, she won¬ 
dered if he would mind going with her to the priest 
at the church of St. Sulpice. She had been “confess¬ 
ing” to him since she came to Paris. 

“No, indeed, my kitten!” Albert’s voice was almost 
jubilant. “By all means let us be married by a Cath¬ 
olic priest. When the Church of Rome binds no one 
can tear assunder, he added with a mysterious 
twinkle in his eyes. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


325 


Eight days later Albert was brought home slightly 
wounded. The duel had taken place in the Valley o£ 
St. Germain. 

During his convalescence a friend dropped in. 

“You have made thousands and thousands of 
friends,” the visitor was saying enthusiastically. 

“Ah, yes, I understand,” jested Abert, “Drawing 
blood—especially an enemy’s blood—always relieves 
one’s pain. If I had been killed the kind Jesuits would 
have named the day of the duel a Saint’s Day.” 

Marguerite, who sat by his bedside, begged him to 
stop laughing, as the physician had told her his con¬ 
stant laughing and joking irritated his wound. 

“The doctor is mistaken,” Albert retorted. “My 
joking and laughing irritates the wounds of my ene¬ 
mies.” 


THE JEST OF THE GODS. 


I. 

Y OUTH lives in the future, middle age in the 
present, old age in the past, but Albert Zorn, 
though still in his early middle life, and in the 
greatest vigor of his mentality, found himself nursing 
memories of the past. Instead of dwelling upon the 
present or the future he was now constantly brooding 
over the blunders in the days gone by, living over 
again the moments of ecstasy, and of passion, long 
vanished, musing upon experiences that could never 
enter his life again. Never a man of action—his 
battles were only strifes of ideas—he reached the stage 
when no one would take up his challenges. For it was 
in the middle of the nineteenth century when there 
came a lull in the struggle of ideas. After every sharp 
world conflict there comes a momentary pause, a leth¬ 
argical rest, while man gathers strength for the next 
combat. Recently there had been so many clashes of 
ideas, irreconcilable ideas, that for the moment no one 
cared what the other thought. 

In spite of his growing fame Albert was living in a 
modest quarter in Paris, just he and his Marguerite, 
as simply as the humblest of workmen, and worked in- 
defatigably. He wrote poems, the finest fruits of his 
pen, he discussed on philosophical themes, with keener 
327 


328 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


insight than the obtuse pedants who passed for philo¬ 
sophers; he made political observations, with clearer 
vision than those whom the world called statesmen. 
But his enemies—and all his antagonists were his ene¬ 
mies—clamored loud enough to drown his voice. Be¬ 
ing a radical among the conservatives and a conser¬ 
vative among radicals his enemies had no difficulty in 
confusing the masses as to the meaning of his words. 
The enemies of clear thinking and right living have 
always seen to it that the masses should fail to un¬ 
derstand those that come to their aid. Ah, the masses, 
he murmured under his breath, the masses have always 
unwittingly stoned those who came to redeem them! 

Spring came again, spring in Paris. The sky was 
dear and blue; blossoms dazzled in the morning sun¬ 
shine ; delicious fragrance wafted from the distant 
fields. Spring always brought melancholy thoughts 
to Albert’s mind, and his thoughts this spring were 
even more melancholy. For paralysis had spread from 
his left hand to the whole left side and he could hardly 
move without acute pain. However, the more he 
suffered the harder he worked because the intensity 
of creative word deadened his pain, but when the effort 
was spent the reaction was all the greater. 

One late afternoon he settled at an open window, 
with his eyes almost closed, dreams of old songs in his 
brain. He was tired and, leaning in an arm-chair, he 
rested, feeling as if an iron hoop was around his head 
and through its tight embrace all his thoughts and 
ideas had been put to sleep. Gradually all the sweet 
memories of the past—and even his past great sorrows 
were now sweet memories to him—came back to him. 
He let his mind wander . . . 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


329 


A bird twittered under his window; a sparrow came 
hopping on his little feet. He sighed and drew his 
breath painfully. He could not even hop like the 
sparrow. It was years since he had walked the 
Boulevards, since he had heard Paris laugh. Oh, Paris! 
he sighed and nodded his head woefully. France was 
to him like a garden where all the beautiful flowers 
of the world had been plucked to make one fine nose¬ 
gay—Paris was the nosegay. It seemed to him ages 
since the perfume of this nosegay had reached his 
nostrils . . . 

His thoughts drifted. He began to feel the ennui 
cf his isolation. His visitors had grown fewer and 
fewer and fewer. He realized that no one cared to 
see one in misery. Presently his mind dwelt upon his 
last glimpse of Parisian life. It seemed to him ages 
ago. Leaning back in his cab he had watched the 
smiling grisettes in the doorways of the shops, the 
coquettes on the pavement . . . 

He again heaved a sigh and abruptly dismissed that 
pleasant memory. There was rancor in his heart. 
People had called him a libertine, a Don Juan ... A 
bitter smile appeared on his bloodless lips. He a Don 
Juan! He who had sung of romance and love! He 
frowned upon the injustice of the world’s opinion. 
He could count on the fingers of one hand the number 
of women he had ever loved . . . 

He tossed his head, contempt on his face. He did 
not care what the people were saying about him. 

The next moment his wife’s laughter reached his 
ears. In the adjoining room she was munching bon¬ 
bons and reading a novel by Paul de Kock. He shud- 


330 . THE SUBLIME JESTER 

dered. Ah, he should have married a woman who 
could understand him . . . 

He suddenly raised himself from his arm-chair, 
picked up his cane, limped across the room, and was 
soon in the street. An overwhelming desire to see 
the Boulevards again came upon him. He hailed a 
cab and leaning back in the conveyance feasted his 
eyes upon the surging crowds in the thoroughfares. 
Reaching the Madelaine he ordered the driver to turn 
into Rue Royal, and then along the Tuillerie Gardens 
up to the Louvre, when he ordered the coachman to 
halt and alighted. Half paralyzed, half blind, leaning 
heavily upon his cane and dragging his withered limbs, 
he proceeded to the palace of art. 

It was late in the afternoon, the galleries were de¬ 
serted, the glow of the setting sun cast melancholy 
shadows over the plastic statues of stone and granite 
wrought by the hands of the ancient Egyptians and long 
forgotten Greeks. There was even vaster melancholy 
m his heart. The gods and goddesses he worshipped in 
his youth seemed to be mocking him:—Bacchus and 
Apollo, Orpheus and the bearded, horny Pan—they 
all seemed to jeer at him. He could not withhold a 
groan. He fathomed the despair of Moses, the son of 
Amram, as he stood on the top of the Pisgah and 
yearningly gazed at the land of Canaan—the land for 
which he had fought that others might enter but he 
could not enter. That was the irony of life, the jest of 
the gods. He, too, like Moses of old, had dragged him¬ 
self to the top of Pisgah to have his last glance at his 
promised land! 

A thousand sad thoughts flitted through his brain. 
He limped along the vast halls and paused before 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


331 


Venus de Milo. A hectic flush came into his face. He 
looked up at the armless goddess with the covetuous- 
ness of a virgin youth beholding a maiden of rare 
beauty. Settling down on the cold stone bench in 
front of the statue, both of his hands resting on the 
head of his cane, his half-blind eyes blurred with tears, 
he gazed yearningly at the parted lips of her exquisite 
mouth. Was she just smiling, or was she, too, smiling 
at him? His eyes closed for a moment, with unbear¬ 
able pain in his heart. Ah, if he could only die at this 
very moment! he reflected. That would be a poetical, 
pagan, fitting death for him. His whole life passed be¬ 
fore him like a vision. All his life he had worshipped 
beauty—the divine figure before him was the symbol 
of beauty—her seductive, tantalizing, heavenly smile, 
her sweet sensuous lips set his blood boiling. Tears 
rolled down his wan cheeks, his enfeebled frame shook 
with grief and mortification. He must live perforce 
and look on as the great, avenging, mocking God was 
finishing his diabolic jest .... 

He struggled to his feet and staggered through the 
vast corridors, without turning his eyes in the direc¬ 
tion of the artistic masterpieces of all ages . . . 

After that visit at the Louvre Albert was unable to 
leave his room. His forebodings were prophetic. That 
palace of art—the Salle de la Venus de Milo—was his 
Mount of Nebo, from which he had caught the last 
glimpse of his promised land. 

II. 

One day Marguerite entered his room with the an¬ 
nouncement that some one wished to see him. 


332 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


At first he made no reply. He lay stretched on a 
low couch with the immobility of a corpse and his up¬ 
per eyelids met the lower in two fine pencilled lines like 
the eyes of the dead. His hair and beard, framing skin 
of deathly pallor, were also lifeless. His beautifully 
shaped right hand, thin almost to the point of trans¬ 
parency, rested limply on his coverlet. 

Marguerite repeated: “Albert, there is some one who 
wants to see you.” 

His figure suddenly stirred as if convulsed. 

“I suppose another countryman to view my remains 
and then go back to Germany and lie about me!” A 
bitter smile appeared on his bloodless lips as he uttered 
these words with an irritable sneer. “I am sick of all 
visitors. They come here out of curiosity. The swine! 
What stories they have fabricated about me. I want 
friends, not visitors. And friends come only when one 
has something to give them!” He emitted a sigh. “Why 
should they come?” he soon added more bitterly. “Who 
wants to see misery!” 

“This is a woman, Albert. She says she comes from 
Vienna-” 

“From Vienna—she is perhaps bringing me word 
that the director of the Royal theatre is to present one 
of my tragedies—he has promised me. Send her in.” 

The next instant the corner of his mouth twitched, 
the crease between his eyes flattened, and digging his 
right elbow into the downy pillow underneath him, he 
raised his right side to a half-sitting posture and 
leaned against the prop of pillows at his head. A 
panting sigh betrayed the great effort of raising him¬ 
self. 

Presently a girl of about twenty-two stepped in, and 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


333 


as she caught sight of the half-blind, half-paralyzed 
figure her breathing almost stopped. For a bare sec¬ 
ond she halted as if she meant to retreat, but her blue 
eyes filled with tears and she whispered. “Bon jour/* 

“Guten Morgen/* he replied in German and extended 
his withered right hand. “So you have come from 
Vienna,” he added without releasing her hand. “Do 
you know my friend Loeb?” 

The young woman stood speechless, leaning over the 
couch, realizing for the first time that unless he lifted 
the paralyzed lid of his right eye he saw nothing. Tears 
overflowed her eyes. 

“I have not come direct from Vienna,” she faltered 
—“I haven’t been there for some time, but—but I 
wanted some excuse to cross your threshold—I lisped 
your songs before I could lisp my prayers—they were 
my breviary—you have taught me the meaning of the 
beauty of life-” 

Albert nodded his head as she uttered the last flatter¬ 
ing words, a smile of great satisfaction appeared on 
his face. The speaker’s girlish voice attracted him; it 
was like a voice from his young life, the days of love- 
making in Gunsdorf, Bonn and Goettingen. And the 
voice was such a relief to him! He was tired of all 
the voices around him—of the jabbering speech of his 
nurses, and of his wife—good souls all, but God! what 
voices! It was years since he had heard a pleasing 
voice. 

“Never mind why you came here,” he struck in, 
smiling, “I am happy that you are here. Sit down and 
tell me who you are.” 

She moved a chair nearer the couch and sat down. 

“I can hardly tell you who I am—” she was nervous- 


334 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


ly plucking at the edges of the roll of music in her 
hands, her eyes filled with tears, rested pitifully on the 
face that spoke of a thousand sufferings. To her it 
was the face of the Christ—the suffering face of the 
Man of Sorrows; the beard and the superfine, blood¬ 
less lips and the nose and the closed eyes and the 
strange smile—there was something of the expression 
of Eli , Eli, lamah Zabachtani in that face. 

“Come nearer, let me see what you look like.” 

She moved her chair closer to the couch, and rais¬ 
ing the right eyelid with the tips of his fingers, he held 
it for a moment and looked at the visitor, who hes¬ 
itated to tell her name. He scented romance. The 
sweet tantalization of youth was again in his blood. He 
was eager, pursuing, impatient. The glimpse of her 
made him still more eager. He took in at a glance her 
roguish blue eyes, so appealing yet so shrewd, her 
light-brown hair, her slender figure—the slenderness, 
without the suggestion of meagerness that always at¬ 
tracted him. 

He pressed her for information about herself. She 
fenced cleverly. She did not mean to tell him her his¬ 
tory—she had never told her history to any one. 

111 tell you the truth,” she was saying, trying to 
divert his mind from her person. “I learned that your 
secretary had gone and since French and German are 
almost equally my mother tongue, I thought I might 
be of service to you.” 

“No, no,” he shook his head, laughing, “one can no 
more have two mother tongues than one can have 
two mothers. You are a Swabian— you can’t hide it 
from me. I can tell a Swabian accent—I can never 
forget Hegel’s accent and manner of pronouncing 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


335 


certain words—and a sweet Swabian woman’s face.— 
Now, since I have paid you a compliment we are 
friends, so you must tell me who you are.” 

There was a moment’s silence. The visitor’s blue 
eyes shifted from side to side, her inner indecision was 
betrayed in her mobile features. 

“I once spent a whole day talking about you with 
a perfect stranger, a man who happened to be a friend 
and admirer of yours—he thought I had fallen in love 
with him.’” She gave a roguish little laugh. 

“Who was he?” There was boyish inquisitiveness in 
his voice. 

“Heinrich Metzger.” 

“So you are the Butterfly!” Albert exclaimed. 

“Yes, I am the Butterfly,” she returned, laughing. 
“What did Herr Metzger tell you about me?” She 
halted and a blush spread over her cheeks. “I know; 
he told you he had met me on a train going from 
Paris to Havre, and that I had fallen in love with him 
at first sight. Herr Metzger thinks he is quite ir¬ 
resistible.” 

Albert laughed cheerfully. No man is displeased at 
hearing a pretty woman ridicule another man, even 
when the other happens to be a friend. However, he 
protested. 

“Metzger is a handsome fellow^—a very fine chap— 
quite a lady-killer.” 

“What else did he tell you?” 

“Let me see. He was quite impressed with the mys¬ 
tery of your flitting existence. You wouldn’t give him 
your name but you gave him your ring on which there 
was a seal with the emblem of a butterfly—and you 
did fly away. The next time he met you on the Strand 


336 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


in London, but you wouldn’t recognize him. And then 
he found you in Paris. He thought you were a mys¬ 
terious person. He wished he were a novelist instead 
of a poet. He could have written an interesting story 
about you.” 

The girl laughed. 

“In order to write the novel he would have to know 
the mystery,” she said, her smiling face quickly chang¬ 
ing to that of sadness, “and he still knows nothing 
about me. He doesn’t even know my first name. O, 
yes, he thinks my name is Margot.” Again she emitted 
a light-hearted laugh. “He evidently doesn’t know the 
meaning of Margot in French. I had talked so much 
and so recklessly that day that I thought Margot a 
fitting name for myself. I was a regular margot —a 
real chatterbox—that day—and all because we talked 
about you and he said he had just visited you-” 

Albert extended his hand. She let her hand rest in 
his and gazed intensely at his face, which was now 
flushed and full of animation. 

“I never hoped, I never dreamed, I’d come so close 
to you, the poet of my dreams,” she murmured with¬ 
out withdrawing her hand from his. 

“Do tell me who you are,” he begged. 

“For the present call me Butterfly,” she said, 
rising. “I’ll call again—if you’ll let me.’ ’ 

He was clinging to her hand. 

“You must come again!” he addressed her du (thou) 
familiarly. “You must!” he pressed her hand affec¬ 
tionately. “You shall be the last ray of sunshine in 
my dark life. Ah, why didn’t you come before? My 
life of late has been so dreary!” 

There were tears in his voice. Tears gathered in her 



THE SUBLIME JESTER 


337 


eyes, too. Then a moment of silence. From the next 
room came the jarring laughter of his wife. The par¬ 
rot was repeating au revoir again and again. From 
outside, through the open door over the balcony, came 
the noise of the street, the rattle of carriages, the jang¬ 
ling of a hurdy-gurdy- 

“An revoir,’' she whispered. 

He was still clinging to her hand, speechlessly. Bend 
ing over him she kissed his forehead and rushed out of 
the house. 


III. 

He dropped on his pillows, a hectic flush on his 
bloodless cheeks. His eyelids sealed, his right arm 
limply on the coverlet, he lay musing, half dreaming. 
In this somnolent manner he often spent hours, con¬ 
juring up sweet recollections, pleasing fantasies, and 
more often composed lyrics. 

Presently Marguerite stood before him. Her ap¬ 
proaching steps irritated him. Only the other day he 
had jested about the blessing of his growing blindness 
—it spared him the sight of Marguerite getting fat! 
Fat women had always offended his sense of beauty 
and even now he could not bear the thought that his 
Marguerite—the slim pretty girl he had first known— 
was tipping the scale at two hundred pounds. No won¬ 
der, that spendthrift had of late thought of nothing 
but rich food and gaudy clothes. And now while her 
Albert, notwithstanding his paralysis, was laboring all 
day with his pen to provide her wants, she was only 
thinking of many course dinners and pretty dresses. 


338 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


He had pretended not to notice this. He wished to 
banish unhappy broodings—his life was unhappy 
enough without tormenting thoughts. 

“Who was that girl?” she asked. 

“Oh, some friend sent her here,” he replied per¬ 
functorily. “In the absence of my secretary she might 
be of some service to me. She is quite proficient in 
both French and German.” 

“She is quite chic—that girl-” 

For a bare second he made no rejoinder. He seemed 
to hold his breath. Then he said, with evident con¬ 
straint, “Rather amiable—and bright.” 

The next moment he heard her making her toilette 
preparatory to going out. She was always going out, 
he was saying to himself with increased irritability. 
In the past few years this thought frequently crossed 
his mind, only to be brushed away by a counterthought 
of sympathy for his poor wife, chained to a corpse. He 
pitied her, his martyr. 

Presently as he heard her splashing in the next room, 
talking loudly to the nurse, and laughing lustily, his 
irritation grew. He was vexed and angry. He won¬ 
dered whom she was going to meet. She usually 
stayed away hours—sometimes almost the whole day— 
and when he pressed her for an explanation she would 
burst in tears and say that after she had walked blocks 
and blocks in order to save cabfare he ill-treated her; 
and then he would call himself a brute and would re¬ 
primand her for her niggardliness. No, he did not 
want his devoted wife to wear her legs off for the 
sake of a couple of francs; for even though he was 
paralyzed he was working and earning as much as 
many an able-bodied man, he added boastfully. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


339 


This moment he was sure that she had always lied to 
him. She was having secret rendezvous. No, no, he 
was not jealous. A paralyzed man, with a wasted 
body, could hardly compete with half a million able- 
bodied men in Paris! he would say to himself cyn¬ 
ically. Ah! he did not care whom she was going to 
meet if she only did not laugh so boisterously. He 
could not bear that booming, loud laughter of hers 
coming now from the adjoining room. 

He was annoyed beyond words. No wonder the 
young visitor who had just left had mistaken Mar¬ 
guerite for a servant. 

The young Swabian girl had made a faux pas. She 
had referred to Marguerite as his servant and when 
he had enlightened her she blundered still worse. The 
woman who had opened the door for her looked so 
ordinary, she had said, that she could not imagine her 
idol would have chosen such a fat woman for his 
mate. No, he did not blame this young girl for her 
blundering speech. Marguerite was an ordinary fat 
woman, not the fit companion of a poet, who had al¬ 
ways worshipped feminine beauty. 

He was glad Marguerite was going out, and would 
leave him in peace. Between the parrot’s screeching 
and Marguerite’s laughter he did not know which to 
choose, but when both were exercising their lungs life 
was unbearable. He felt quite relieved when his wife, 
in swishing silk, presently bade him au revoir and 
slammed the door, leaving an odor of cosmetics behind 
her. t 

He was again calm, frolicsome thoughts playing in 
the attic of his brain. He was thinking of his myster¬ 
ious visitor, the Butterfly. She was charming. Her 


340 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


voice came back to him like a sweet chime. A delect¬ 
able sensation was rising within him. The voice of the 
sweetest romance was calling to him. His chest heaved. 
She had been kind to Metzger and had given him her 
ring as a souvenir because he was the friend of her 
poet, and the deluded soul thought she was in love 
with him! A happy smile was on his face. He was 
very fond of Metzger. Had he not said in print he, 
Albert Zorn, aside from being the greatest living poet 
in the world, had the kindest heart, the noblest soul? 
And Metzger was handsome. Even in his days of 
bloom, Albert could not boast of such manly beauty 
as his friend, Albert owned to himself. And this mys¬ 
terious Swabian damsel had always been in love, with 
him ever since she was a child, she had said! All his 
pains disappeared. The romanticism of his youth was 
returning. Indeed, his body was wasted but his spirit, 
his heart, was as young as of yore! Real poets die 
young! Youth remains in their hearts even if they 
reach the age of Methuselah! Yes, he was young 
again. The lure of love was in his blood once more. 
The dying candle sent forth a leaping flame. 

He was soon feverish with anxiety, as feverish as 
when he waited for Miriam under the willows near 
Gnesen. His fancy lent color to his vision of this 
mysterious stranger. He had only a glimpse of her 
but the impression of her face was indelible. With his 
eyes closed the picture of her was most vivid. 

He stirred and reached for the portfolio that con¬ 
tained his paper and pencil—which always lay by his 
side. He rose higher on his pillows and, gripping his 
long pencil, began to scrawl. He had always had a 
beautiful handwriting but now he could only scratch 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


341 


long irregular letters. He was glad that she had left 
him her address. Why had she left him her address? 
Honey flowed in his veins. Did she hope he would 
write to her? She was but womanly; wanted to be 
wooed by her lover . . . 

“Lovable and charming Person:—” he scribbled 
hastily, 

“I regret most keenly having seen so little of you on 
your first visit. You left a most agreeable impression 
upon me, and I have the greatest desire to see you 
again. Don’t stand on ceremony but come as soon as 
possible—tomorrow if you can. I am ready to receive 
you at any time. I should prefer that you come at 
four and stay until—as late as you please. I am writ¬ 
ing to you with my own hand, in spite of my poor eye¬ 
sight, because, as you know, I have no secretary whom 
I can trust. The deafening noises around me cause 
me incessant pain, and your sympathy has meant so 
much to me. Superstitious as I am, I imagine that a 
good fairy has visited me in my hour of affliction. My 
hours of affliction? No, if you are a good fairy this 
is an hour of bliss. Or will you be a bad fairy? I 
must know this at once. 

Your Albert Zorn.” 


IV. 

He forwarded the letter as soon as he had finished 
it and indulged in speculations, sweet speculations. 
Would she come tomorrow at four? No, she might not. 
W’omen were never as impulsive as men but more 
subtle. Women possessed greater self-control; at least, 


342 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


they were not as demonstrative as men; they knew 
how to hide their feelings. Indeed, he had known the 
whims and caprices of women since he was sixteen! 
Women loved to make men beg on their knees for that 
which they would eagerly give without asking. Is it 
possible that this pretty young Swabian was in love 
with him?—with him who was no longer a man but a 
spirit? He was not even an aged Faust rejuvenated 
by love. What comedy life was playing with him! 

His dual vision—of experiencing sensations and con¬ 
templating them at the same time—had never left him, 
since his impressionable youth. Feverish youth was in 
his blood again. He recalled the touch of her hand— 
how clinging her hand was, when he clasped it in his! 
—he had experienced the same feeling as when he first 
touched the hand of—of Hedwiga, of Hilda, or Euge¬ 
nie, of Miriam, of—no, he could not think of Mar¬ 
guerite now. 

The next moment he grew self-analytical and ser¬ 
ious. He was always analyzing himself. Love did not 
change, he said to himself. The fire that burned in his 
veins when he first met Marguerite was out. Yes, that 
fire was now dead. As far as Marguerite was con¬ 
cerned there was winter in his heart; white flakes had 
fallen on the sweet blossoms of yesterday and blighted 
them. In their place new flowers had sprung, new 
perfumes, the beginning of a new spring. Ah, he must 
seize his lyre and serenade his awakened joys and sor¬ 
rows! Indeed, joys and sorrows always went together, 
like the rose and the thorn, like the sun and the clouds. 
His harpstrings quivered with sweet, sad tones. The 
moonbeams again played with the flower petals of 
verdant spring; the departed nightingales had come 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


343 


floating from afar and were singing as sweetly as ever. 
Love was dead, long live love! 

Ah, he was young again! Songs flowed from his 
heart. He must not philosophize. Love was eternal. 

He would not think of his shrunken body, he would 
not dwell on his wasted strength, new blood flowed in 
his veins. 


V. 

His good fairy came punctually at four. She tripped 
in like a fairy, indeed, and leaned over him and kissed 
him on his forehead, while her little hand rested in 
his. She, too seemed unconscious of the presence of 
Marguerite in the adjoining room. She removed her 
wrap with a gesture of determination—as if warding 
off an intruder—and settled down by his couch, as if 
she meant to stay with him forever. 

“Let me look at your sweet Swabian face,” he whis¬ 
pered and raised the lifeless eyelid of his right eye. 
“You have a face of a Swabian Gelb-Vogelein,*’ he 
breathed in her ear. 

He was glad Marguerite had never learned German. 
He could now speak freely with his Butterfly. And this 
was only the second time she had been near him! He 
felt that he had always known her; everything about 
her seemed strangely familiar to him; he felt as if he 
had met her in a previous existence and now met her 
again after a lapse of many years; and while his me¬ 
mory failed him as to her name and the place he had 
met her, his feelings toward her were those of an old 
friend. 


344 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


“You haven’t told me yet your right name,” he mur¬ 
mured, seeking her hand, which she readily placed in 
his. “You elusive Butterfly!” He emitted a soft laugh, 
“I never stopped thinking of you for a moment since 
you left. I wondered if you were but a fairy of dream¬ 
land and feared that I might wake at any moment and 
find you had vanished. What is your name, fairy 
mine ?” 

“Call me Butterfly-” 

“My Butterfly you shall always be, but what is your 
real name—who are you? It seems to me I have known 
you for ages—I am beginning to believe in the trans¬ 
migration of souls—I feel that I met you before in a 
different sphere-” 

Her hand still resting in his she looked at his blood¬ 
less face wistfully; she seemed absent minded, as if she 
had not heard his words, and yet knew what he said. 

“You are right, I know I met you before.” She was 
speaking in a hushed voice, an expression on her pen¬ 
sive face as if she were under a hypnotic influence; 
there was a strange glitter in her blue eyes. “When I 
was a little girl—when I first read your poems—your 
words seemed familiar to me as if I had heard them 
before. When I read your verses, I heard you recite 
them to me—the voice I now hear was the voice I al¬ 
ways heard. When I told my mother about this she 
only laughed and patted me and said I was an imag¬ 
inative child. The older I grew the more convinced I 
was that souls did migrate—that your soul and mine 
had loved each other before and had been parted and 
that we were destined to meet again. I always knew 
I’d meet you. When my mother brought me to Paris 
—I was little then—I heard some one speak of you. I 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


345 


can recall the trembling of my heart at the mention of 
your presence in Paris. But I was only a child then. 
I felt like a young girl, as yet unfamiliar with her own 
passions, suddenly awakened to the consciousness of 
male attraction. I trembled every time I heard your 
name mentioned and yet never dared learn of your 
whereabouts in this great Babel and see you in the flesh. 
Sometimes I heard people speak of you in uncompli¬ 
mentary terms—they said you were immoral—and I felt 
mortified but I did not believe anything evil of you. I 
could not believe it. I have always known you—always! 
When I met Herr Metzger on the train he made some 
remark to me in French, but I could see that he was 
German so I addressed him in his language. He was 
piqued at first. People speaking a foreign language 
are always piqued when you make them feel their 
adopted tongue is not quite their own. We are all 
vain about it—even the great Albert Zorn!” 

She gave a roguish little laugh and he pressed her 
hand tenderly without venturing a retort. He had 
listened to her so attentively that he did not wish to 
interrupt her speech. 

“He thought I was flirting with him,” she con¬ 
tinued with a gentle toss of her well-poised head. 
“Herr Metzger is very vain about his physique. Of 
course, he is good looking but he knows nothing 
about women—nothing! I was alone in the compart¬ 
ment-just he and I—and the train was speeding. 
During travel intimacies are quickly formed. Before 
long he told me the history of his life—he told me 
everything about himself, even of his love affairs, his 
conquests.” She chuckled. “Pie thought he made me 
jealous when I teased him about his frankness. Mind 


346 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


you, I was then only seventeen and he was a man 
already—years and years older than I—and within 
half an hour he revealed himself to me completely 
while I had told him nothing about myself—literally 
nothing! When he began to probe he found all 
avenues closed. Then he began to boast—all men 
begin to boast when they fear they have not made 
sufficient impression upon a woman; they don’t real¬ 
ize that their boasting, like a frost in late spring, nips 
the first buds. He was telling me what a great poet 
he was and what the critics said of him, incidentally 
mentioning what you had said of him. He must have 
noticed my sudden interest in him. He misunderstood 
the reason. He boasted of friendship with you and I 
showed still greater interest in him. He felt flattered. 
I wished to meet him again when he returned here— 
I wanted to renew my acquaintance with such a close 
friend of yours. I hoped to meet you through him. 
Was that mean of me?” 

Albert sighed and only pressed her small hand with 
his thin fihgers. 

Marguerite passed through the room, and the girl 
quickly withdrew her hand. Marguerite paused to ask 
him if he minded her going to the theatre that even¬ 
ing. She had not yet seen Scribe’s latest play. Albert 
said he did not mind it at all. In fact, he wished she 
would go and get a little fresh air. Would he mind if 
she took the nurse along and got dinner at one of the 
restaurants? No, he did not mind this either. He 
had not felt as well in years as at the present. Mar¬ 
guerite wabbled away, humming a bar of the latest 
popular song. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


347 


“Go on. And then?” he turned to the girl by his 
couch. 

“Then something dreadful happened to me.” She 
crossed her legs and gripped her knee between her 
clasped hands. “My mother urged me to get mar¬ 
ried. She was at the end of her string, she confided to 
me, with tears in her eyes. She did not want me to 
repeat her blunder. She thought I was too impetu¬ 
ous—she said she herself had been too impetuous and 
ruined her whole life. I, too, might prove indiscreet 
if I fell in love. She believed in the orthodox fashion 
of French marriages, a husband chosen by the par¬ 
ents. She wished she had listened to her mother 
when she was seventeen. Instead—instead she had 
a daughter on her hands without a father to look 
after her. Men were all alike, she preached to me, un¬ 
less they were tied by legal fetters they flew away to 
warmer climates when the air at home grew cold. 
This was a shocking revelation to me. I had never 
known my father but my mother had never mentioned 
his name so I thought he had died, I asked no further 
questions. I now understood my mother’s tragedy— 
and mine. A few days later she introduced me to a 
middle-aged Frenchman and told me he wished to 
marry me. He was rich, she added, and would pro¬ 
vide well for me. I made no protests. I married 
him.” 

She paused. There were tears in her eyes, there 
were tears in her voice. The poet lay still, his 
bloodless lips compressed, his paralyzed eyelids 
sealed. The clock on the mantel seemed to tick 
louder than ever. Through the open glass door over 
the balcony came noises from the street; rolling 


348 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


vehicles, snapping whips, floating laughter. The 
parrot was calling “Bon jour” and then joined in 
the laughter outside. 

“I thought I was quite wordly then,” she soon 
proceded; “at least, quite sophisticated for a girl of 
seventeen. I had always mingled with people older 
than myself and assimilated their maturity. I had 
traveled considerably and my close association with 
my mother—who is a very intellectual and cultured 
woman and was governess in her younger days in 
one of the most influential aristocratic families in 
Germany—should have given me an understanding 
of life. Yes, I thought I did understand life much 
more than most girls of my age but I had soon 
learned that seventeen is but seventeen; my knowl¬ 
edge of the world was too superficial—it was like 
most conversations between pseudo-cultured people 
—meaningless phrases that sound well and vapid 
platitudes that pass for cleverness but contain not a 
grain of real sense. Stranger still, while I was a 
precocious child, impetuous, passionate, with a 
strong sex sense, I did not have the least intimation 
of the relationship between the sexes. It doesn’t 
sound credible, but it was so. My inquisitiveness 
had never led me to probe the relationship of the 
sexes. I found myself married to a native of Paris, 
a man twenty-six years older than myself, a man to 
whom sex was an open book, one to whom sex had 
only one meaning. No, I can’t quite make clear to 
you my feelings when he first kissed me, when he rav¬ 
ished my body. Oh, it was revolting!” She shuddered 
visibly. I had had visions of sweetness, of tenderness, 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


349 


of transporting passion, of ecstasy, and found—oh, I 
can’t describe it—it is too horrible to dwell upon it.” 

She paused, a sob in her throat. Albert’s hand 
was caressing hers sympathetically, silently. 

“I wonder if any man understands the difference 
between the passion of a woman and that of a man!” 
She heaved a sigh, and there was agony in her 
voice. She felt the tender grip of his hand and 
added smilingly, “Poets sometimes do understand 
the difference, but then poets are feminine in their 
instincts. A man may prefer one woman to another 
—just as he may prefer champagne to claret—but 
when he can’t have his preference the inferior is 
quite as agreeable. A woman is a woman. I am 
told even a man as wise as Benjamin Franklin felt 
this about women. Of course, Franklin was no 
poet. To a woman only her preference exists—the 
other are abscheulich\ The fact that many women 
submit to men they don’t love proves nothing. In 
a society in which more than half of life is artificial, 
forced, and the woman the weaker, she can’t help 
but submit. But, oh! if man could but read the in¬ 
nermost secrets of woman’s heart! Thousands of 
years of self-suppression have made women incap¬ 
able of even revealing themselves to themselves. 

“Well, I found myself legally tied to a man whom 
I abhorred. His mere presence was loathsome to 
me. When he touched me I was filled with revul¬ 
sion. Instead of a vivacious, highly sensitive girl 
that I had been I had become a depressed, morbid 
woman. I could not even read your songs—all 
beauty had become ugliness to me. I thought seri¬ 
ously of ending my life. Many a time I carried car- 


350 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


bolic acid to my lips and put it away from me by 
sheer force. At times I raved like a maniac. My 
husband showered gifts upon me—he gave me jewels 
and fine clothes—men are always so stupid and 
imagine trinkets win affection—but that made me 
hate him the more. He told me I ought to consult 
a physician but I knew opiates could not cure me. 
How could a sordid business man, to whom the 
acquisition of wealth was all that life offered, un¬ 
derstand what ailed me? One day he suggested 
travel. I welcomed it. I hoped new scenes might 
take me away from myself. But it proved the 
reverse. It only made me realize that there were 
fragrant woods and that 1 was confined in a narrow 
little cage in a dingy attic. My husband was be¬ 
side himself. When we got to London he decided 
that I was insane. Perhaps I was. At least, I acted 
like a lunatic. The excitement of the English metro¬ 
polis had a strange effect upon me. I had suddenly 
grown hilarious, pulled my husband from music 
hall to music hall, from one jewelry shop to another 
—and made him squander his hard-earned money 
as if I were his mistress. It was then—on the 
Strand—that Metzger met me and spoke to me but, 
to his amazement, I denied his acquaintance. I 
could not think of the time when I read you poetry 
and was in love with the beauty of life. But a few 
days later the reaction set in. I flung my jewels 
away, I tore up my finery, I shrank from my dis¬ 
tracted husband and wept. 

/‘Days past. He implored me, he beseeched me to 
be rational, but I was hysterical. One day on the 
pretext of taking a drive to get fresh air, he finally 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


351 


coaxed me to leave my room. The next thing I re¬ 
member is that he escorted me to a luxurious villa, 
where I was met by a fine looking elderly gentleman, 
who talked to me as if I were a little child. That 
amused me and I couldn’t help bursting into 
laughter. He patted my shoulder and said I would 
be all right in time, and his strange actions amused 
me still more although his French was enough to 
send one into convulsions. Before I realized what 
was happening, I was locked in a room, alone. The 
next day I discovered that my husband had placed 
me in a private sanitorium. But, thank: God, I was 
rid of my huband, I said to myself; I was alone 
and free from his loathsome attentions. After a 
few days’ rest I had a talk with the head physician 
—a very sane individual—who was very sympathetic 
and kind. It did not take him long to understand 
my case. He gave me the five hundred pounds my 
husband had left with him for my care for three 
months and bade me God-speed. ‘Yes, I understand 
—I understand,’ he kept murmuring sadly. ‘God 
help you,’ he added in a prayerful tone. 

“At last I was free. Instead of going back to 
my mother I went to Vienna, where I had relatives. 
I was afraid my mother might try to bring about a 
reconciliation with my husband. Before long I was 
myself again. Besides the money left me by my hus¬ 
band I earned a good deal by giving French lessons, 
and I lived economically. One day I made the ac¬ 
quaintance of a musician, a composer—a dreamy sort 
of chap—who seemed to be falling in love with me. 
. He always carried a volume of your poems in his 
pocket or under his arm. And how he recited your 


352 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


songs! The poor young. man was lovelorn. He 
thought he was in love with me but I knew he was in¬ 
toxicated with love. He was a poet. And he set 
some of your songs to music most charmingly. I pre¬ 
sume I encouraged his attentions and his visits—the 
poor young man was so helpless, so childlike, and 
I was so eager to hear him hum your songs—but 
when he began to make violent love to me I realized 
I had gone too far with him. I told him I could not 
love him—I could not love anybody—and that, be¬ 
sides, I was married. But I could not get rid of him. 
He was the most helpless creature I have ever known 
and the most sentimental. It was pitiful. I pitied 
him from the bottom of my heart and gave him some 
financial assistance. He took it, but he was not a 
parasite. He was just helpless. I then decided to re¬ 
turn to Paris. I had exacted a promise from my 
mother that she would not mention my husband's 
name. And I have been living with her ever since. 
I have never discussed the source of her income but 
I know she has always received a monthly stipend 
from a well known noble family in Germany—it may 
be from my father—and her allowance is quite liberal.” 

“Armes Kind Albert murmured affectionately. 

She paused. Marguerite, overdressed and overper¬ 
fumed—large hipped and full-breasted, with rouged 
fleshy cheeks—came to bid Albert goodbye. She 
leaned over him and kissed his forehead but he made 
no attempt to raise his eyelid. He only murmured au 
revoir, and as he turned his face to one side a deep 
sadness flitted across his cadaverous cheeks. As Mar¬ 
guerite turned to leave, she turned around and gave 
the young girl a quizzical look. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


353 


When the outside door closed the invalid stretched 
out his hand toward his visitor and she replaced her 
hand into his. 

“Du letste Blume meines larmoyanten Herbstes 
he murmured, caressing her hand. 

A moment later he added, “You won’t leave me 
now, since you have at last appeared, my last ray of 
sunshine. All my friends have left me—all—” There 
was a checked sob in his breast. 

“Never, never, never!—” There were tears in her 
voice. 

“Don’t cry, holdes Hers, life is a comedy, and death 
its final scene. Last night I dreamt I was dead and 
hugely enjoyed the ceremony of my burial.” 

He gave a soft laugh and his bloodless lips puckered 
like those of a pouting child. 

“They laid me in a gorgeous mausoleum of costly 
marble, and the walls were bas reliefs of grotesque 
scenes, sacred and profane—all the utterances of my 
whole life seemed illustrated on those walls. When 
they lowered my coffin I began to laugh and could 
not stop laughing even when they screwed on the 
lid. Then all of a sudden, as if by magic, I noticed 
a dark-blue flower spring from the ground at the 
foot of my tomb. It looked like a passion flower from 
which were suspended all the instruments of torture 
used during the Inquisition in Spain. All at once 
the passion flower assumed human form; it was a 
living being; it had the sweet face of a charming 
young woman; a sweet, sad face, full of tenderness 
and love, was leaning over my dead body. I stared 
in amazement. It was your sweet countenance, lieb- 
stes Kind , and hot burning tears were dripping from 


354 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


your eyes and falling upon my dead face. Ah, these 
dreams! Since the earliest recollections of my child¬ 
hood I have always been dreaming—my days and 
nights were veritably different existences. So, you 
see, I have really lived longer than most men. You 
must multiply my age by two. I have long passed 
the century mark. Yes, indeed, I am a centenarian.” 

She leaned over him and kissed his emaciated hand 
in silence. 

The next moment sadness appeared on his face. 
He turned his head and muttered, “ Ach > das ist 
schrecklich l Ein Toter, lechzend nach den lebendigsten 
Lebensgenussen. All my life I wished to write a 
Faust—a Faust different from all the Fausts ever 
written, different also from Goethe , s—but X never 
fully understood my Faust until now. The conception 
of my Faust is a devout monk who had piously prac¬ 
ticed self-denial and the mortification of his body to 
such an extent that his flesh shrivelled. Then Mephis- 
topheles comes to tantalize him and brings him a 
maiden of matchless beauty. The saintly monk falls 
from grace, flings his life-long belief aside, and woos 
the fair Marguerite, who returns his love, but the poor 
monk can play his tune on only one string. Of all 
his earthly senses desire is the only one left him; a 
thirst unquenchable. Like old Job, he curses the day 
on which he was born even as he scraped himself 
with a potsherd to soothe his pain, but, unlike the 
Man of Uz, Faust dies with a curse of God upon hii 
lips, without realizing that the great beauty-loving 
God has punished him for his failure to listen to His 
Voice earlier in life. The wasted monk is then taken 
to the region of the Styx, where other fools like him- 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


355 


self are baptised in waters of spouting flame and an 
nointed with boiling oil and sulphur, and after a peri¬ 
od of purification is sent back to earth, fully reju¬ 
venated. In the second volume of my Faust I would 
sing of Paradise Regained.” 

Albert chuckled. The Butterfly now understood 
why the critics spoke of him as the German Voltaire. 
No one could be at once so reverent and blasphemous 
as Albert. 

The sun was setting, the afternoon glow was gone, 
invisible shades of darkness were descending upon 
the sick room; silence was round them. Even the 
parrot was hushed. 

“Ah, the first volume of my Faust I have already 
lived,” he sighed, “but there won’t be a second vol¬ 
ume.” Then, with a light laugh, “who can tell, per¬ 
haps the life of Paradise Regained may yet be granted 
me, too. I rather like the Buddhistic doctrine of Re¬ 
incarnation. I may return to earth as the crowned 
Sultan of Turkey.” 

She caught the spirit of his levity and remarked, 
“From all reports you have already lived the life of a 
Sultan—only uncrowned!” 

“Unsinn!” There was scorn in his voice. All levity 
immediately fled from him. “The world has taken me 
too literally. Alas! When I was in earnest they 
thought I was jesting and when I jested they failed 
to grasp my humor—the French are the only people 
who understand me. When I meant to be a Socrates 
they mistook me for an Aristophanes and when I 
played Aristophanes they charged me with trying to 
be a Socrates. I a profligate! Fie who has lived the 
life of a profligate often writes virtuous tracts. It is 


356 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


your priest, your morality-preaching Philistine, your 
man wrapped in the pure white robe of piety, who is 
often the real profligate. My life has been given to 
devotion—I have been a Carmelite, locked in the cell 
of my dreams. I was a little Ishmael in the wilderness 
of Beer Sheba dying of thirst. Ah! that consuming 
thirst, the thirst of beauty that sears one’s soul— 
thirsting, thirsting—thirsting to the end! I have al¬ 
ways loved honorably, earnestly, with all the senses 
God meant for love. Ah, love! There is nothing 
else in life worth striving after. What else is there 
in life? Fame, riches, achievements?—they are only 
coal burnt to clinkers. If I only had a child on whom 
to lavish my love in my dying days!-” 

A sigh, almost a groan, escaped his ported lips. 

“Let me take the place of a child,” she pleaded in 
a whisper, tears filling her eyes. 

“Indeed you are my allersiisstes Kind 

He was fondling her fingers tenderly. “The fates 
have been kind to me after all to send you to me now, 
my good fairy.” 

Dusk came, the invisible shades of twilight were 
thickening. With his eyes sealed he felt the approach 
of night. 

“Will you come tomorrow, my child?” 

“I’ll come every tomorrow.” 

“Until there will be no tomorrow—” He caught 
his breath as he completed her thought. 

VI. 

The candle was burning fast; the wick was charred; 
the wax was all but melted; the dying flame leaping 



THE SUBLIME JESTER 


357 


upward from the depth of the overheated sconce. 
Darkness, and yet again the candle flame shot up. 

No one knew better than Albert that his life was 
spent, that the fire within him was licking the last 
vestige of life-grease, that he was emitting the last 
flicker. He did not wish to crepitate and flutter at the 
end. Let a tongue of red flame be the last memory 
of the extinguished light. 

Save for the Butterfly and his faithful physician, 
Albert was quite forsaken in his last days. But rare¬ 
ly did visitors drop in and now and then a distant 
admirer—usually a woman of high rank—from Ger¬ 
many, from England, from Russia, came to pay hom¬ 
age to his genius. His sister had come and gone, but 
his good mother was obliged to stay away. The poor 
woman was too old to make the journey. Besides, 
she was wondering why her son, being the younger, 
did not make the trip to Hamburg. For he had suc¬ 
ceeded in keeping up the pious deception that he was 
only troubled with his eyes and could therefore not 
write to her with his own hand. 

The Butterfly came daily (except when he bade her 
stay away, because of his excessive suffering) read to 
him, and attended to his correspondence. She took 
the place of his secretary. In order not to fatigue 
her he frequently paused and chatted. He loved to 
ramble, to skip from subject to subject, to rake up 
the dead leaves of the past. His mind constantly re¬ 
verted to his youth, to reminiscences of Gunsdorf, 
of Bonn, of Goettingen, to the days when love was in 
his blood instead of in his brain. He knew he was 
deluding himself, yet found consolation in the delu- 


358 THE SUBLIME JESTER 

sion. He persuaded himself that he was in love with 
the mysterious stranger by his bedside—and what 
love is not a self-persuading delusion?—and clothed 
her with all the charms of his rich fantasy, permitted 
himself to be convinced that the love fever of youth 
was in his veins. 

Indeed, he babbled deliriously the sweet syllables 
of feverish youth: “My sweetest kitten”, “Soul of my 
“My maddening love”—red flares from the dying 
candle! He was again under the warm skies of Italy, 
his beloved Italy—Ah, Italy! he had hoped in vain to 
see it again—he was living over again the Florentine 
Nights with their thousand charms; he met again 
those black-eyed maidens of his fancy, those ether¬ 
eal creatures of his dreams—the dreams he invented. 

In the young woman by his bedside all the beauties 
of his dreams were blended. With his eyes sealed, 
his hand fondling her slender fingers, he was playing 
the youth again—the make-believe youth. And when 
she failed to come one day he was feverish with an¬ 
guish and scrawled love notes to her. 

“My Good, All Gracious, Sweet Butterfly,” he wrote 
entreatingly, “come and flutter your beautiful wings! 

I know one of Mendelsohn’s songs with the refrain 
Come Soon! This song is running continuously 
through my head. ‘Come soon/ 

“I kiss both your dear little hands, not both at 
once, but one after the other.” 

And before there was time to hear from her he dis¬ 
patched another note: 

“My dear Girl: 

“I am very ill and do not wish to see you today. 
But I hope that you’ll be able to come tomorrow. 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


359 


Drop me a line if you can’t come before the day after 
tomorrow.” 

An hour later he scribbled another love note, his 
amorous fever increasing, the restlessness of adoles¬ 
cence in his brain. 

“My Dear, Gracious Kitten: 

“No, I dont want to see you tomorrow. I must 
see you today. Can’t you come today—at once—upon 
receipt of this note? I am afraid I won’t be able to 
see you tomorrow because I feel my headache is com¬ 
ing on. I must see you this afternoon and feel the 
tender caress of your sweet hand, the impress of your 
iips, the touch of your Schwab eng esicht, and listen 
to the sound of your voice. Ah! if I could press my 
precious flower to my breast! But, alas! I am only 
a ghost, a spirit. 

“But do come at once, my dear, sweet child, and 
let me kiss your dear little hands and let my lips graze 
the strands of your fragrant hair. 

Madly yours, 

A. Z ” 

He forwarded the last note as if it were of momen¬ 
tous import, and became restive. Marguerite did not 
understand the cause of his restlessness and irritated 
him by her constant inquiries. She detested the But¬ 
terfly. The wife was suspicious of the intruder, and 
kept telling Albert that the stranger must be a spy and 
he ought not to let her read and talk to him and at¬ 
tend to his correspondence. 

Yes, Marguerite was positive this Mademoiselle was 
a German spy and she had roguish eyes and a co¬ 
quettish look and was "as thin as a rail.” No, n«, 


360 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


she was not jealous of her—indeed, not! Marguerite’s 
fat chin trembled as she emitted a little forced laugh 
She jealous of the insignificant, plain German girl! 
It was laughable! While she. Marguerite, may not 
be as pretty as she had been, but could still hold her 
own- 

“You remember, Albert, what you called me in 
those days? ‘My sweetest little kitten/ ‘My translu¬ 
cent sunbeam/ My fragrant wild flower;’ (Albert tos¬ 
sed his head with evident annoyance)—she emitted 
another forced little laugh—“Indeed, even if I am 
not as pretty as I used to be, a flat-chested little hussy 
like that German vixen could not make me jealous, 
but I have warned you, and I am warning you again, 
that she is a dangerous person. She is-” 

“I have a terrible headache,” he pleaded, with a 
grimace on his face. 

“You always get a terrible headache when I make 
mention of this little German intriguer-” 

“Can’t you get some other subject to talk about?” 
he groaned helplessly. 

“Some other subject!—and that intriguing woman 
trying to steal your love right under my nose! This 
is what I get for my years of devotion! Go ahead 
and change your will—leave everything—to—this— 
German—spy——” 

She was sobbing, the parrot was calling “au revoir” 
Mimi, the little poodle, was barking in a falsetto 
voice, and Albert was beside himself. 

At first he begged her to cease torturing him, then 
grew angry and commanded her to stop, and finally 
was seized with a fit of convulsive coughing which 
choked his breathing. Then the nurse appeared on 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


361 


the scene and, with an angry look at Marguerite, took 
Albert in her arms—his body was so wasted that it 
weighed no more than that of a child—and laid him 
on the sofa, which was usually reserved for visitors. 
"Hie nurse’s arms seemed to have a strange soothing 
effect upon the invalid. Covered with a white sheet 
he rested on the sofa until he was himself again. 

Marguerite, her arms folded, sat in a chair and 
wept silently. No, she did not mean to irritate him; 
she loved her Albert as the apple of her eye; she loved 
him as much as she did when he used to take her to 
the opera and to the finest restaurants in Paris . . . 

“Marguerite—Marguerite-” 

She wept more quietly, her fat red cheeks tear- 
stained. 

“Marguerite, dearest!” His voice grew tender. 
“Come and sit by me.” 

He drew his right hand from under the white sheet 
and extended it toward her. 

“My sweetest kitten—my fragrant wildflower—my 
poor faithful wife—” His voice was husky now, tears 
of tenderness in his throat. “I have always loved you 
as I loved no other—Come, my guardian angel-” 

Presently Marguerite was beside him on the sofa, 
kissing his broad, cadaverous forehead, pressing her 
lips against his lips that felt not, and murmuring the 
endearing terms of years gone by . . . 


VII. 

Months had passed. It was winter, Parisian winter, 
the snowless, penetrating winter of mid-February; and 


362 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


it was night, pitch datfk, and the hazy fog, like thick 
smoke, dimmed the street lamps on the Avenue, even 
the stronger lights around the corner of the adjacent 
Champs Elysees spread only a glow without illumina¬ 
tion. There was the stillness of a winter night ev¬ 
erywhere, the stillness of a belated hour, long past 
midnight, the stillness of a great city asleep. 

In a room on the fifth story of a drab looking 
building, Albert was struggling for breath. He had 
coughed so much that he had no more strength to 
cough aloud, only his chest was heaving and the ex¬ 
pression on his emaciated face, resembling a grim grin, 
betrayed acute suffering, the suffering beyond expres¬ 
sion. He was propped up with pillows in a reclining 
posture to ease his breathing, and from time to time 
he hoisted his right shoulder as if to help his breath¬ 
ing. A candle light on a nearby table cast a shadow 
in the room, and beyond the shadow sat the woman 
attendant, dozing. 

The clock on the white marble mantle struck the 
hour. Semi-consciously the invalid counted the 
strokes—“One, two, three, four!” 

The nurse jumped up, picked up a little bottle and 
spoon from the table, and crossed the chamber toward 
the bed. 

The invalid stirred and shook his head. 

“But Monsieur Zorn, the Doctor will scold me if 
I don’t give you the medicine punctually,” the nurse 
said. 

“Be at ease! I’ll tell the doctor myself that I did 
not want to drink it. Medicine does me no more 
good.” 

She did not understand him, for the past two days 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


363 


he had been addressing her in German, which was 
unknown to her beyond and “Nein.” However, 

she divined his meaning and put the medicine away 
with a kindly smile. 

He turned his head away and promptly forgot the 
attendant and the medicine. The strokes of the clock 
were still dinning in his ears; they sounded to him 
like church bells, like the strange sounds of psalters 
and harps, like—his mind wandered—the bells of St. 
Lombard’s Church were ringing and he was watching 
Christian Lutz jerk his forefingers in and out of his 
ears. Christian said angels floated around the belfry 
when the bells rang. Albert laughed. Angels never 
flew that low, he insisted, but hovered around 
God’s throne; only pigeons flew around the belfry. 
And that pug-nosed Fritz with his fishing rod 
screeched “A1—ber!” . . . 

Would that clock ever stop striking the hour? It 
was positively deafening. He was glad Marguerite 
slept in a room at the furthest end of the apartment, 
so she could not hear him cough at night, and now 
she wouldn’t be disturbed by that crazy clock that 
was striking endlessly. He wished to call the nurse 
to make her stop the clock but some one was choking 
him—some one was gagging him—he could not make 
a sound! . . . 

Presently he was lying on his back perfectly still . . . 
stretched at full length on a mossy rock on the bank 
of the Rhine, watching the fleecy clouds shaped like 
the ruins of a castle against patches of deep blue . . . 
What bird was that singing so melodiously? No, it 
was not a bird—it was the string instruments at the 
Swiss Pavilion on the Jimgfernstieg —the leader of the 


364 


THE SUBLIME JESTER 


orchestra had a funny nose that looked like a suckling 
pig’s snout, and it wiggled like one . . . And Miriam 
was standing on a pedestal in front of the palace at 
Sans Souci. Miriam had no arms and there was a 
strange smile on her lovely lips . . He was glad that he 
was all alone in the Louvre—not a soul around .... 
He rose on his tip-toes and kissed those beautiful cool 
lips, the moonlight shining over his left shoulder . . . 
His mother said he must not kiss marble statues . . . 
His mother—poor mother—the old house in Hamburg 
must be very cold in the winter . . , She was in tears 
because her pearls were gone . . . He, too, was in 
tears and ... his sister was playing the piano .... 
Was the door bell ringing? Somebody was coming to 
visit him. He began to count the mounting footsteps— 
“forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four”—The 
footsteps stopped. Someone must have called on the 
floor below . . . Yes, people called on everybody but 
no one called on him . . . no one . . . not even curiosity 
seekers . . . 

Suddenly all melancholy thoughts left him and he 
breathed easier. He felt no pain at all. Strange that 
all at once he was well again and he was promenading 
indolently, dreamily along the Rhine. He was strolling, 
swinging his cane and humming a song . . . No, he was 
flying ... He had never realized that one needed no 
wings to fly . . . He was flying over the Hartz Moun¬ 
tains, over the dark firs of the Black Forest, over the 
slender silver birches silhouetted in the moonlight, in 
his ears the babbling of brooks, the laughter of girls, 
the song of the nightingale ... and he was sailing . . . 
sailing . . . sailing through the purest air ... . 

The End. 









































v! 

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